Sacramental Seal
by JMK758
Summary: A Marine's murder leads to a crisis of faith. Loyalties are tested, a secret past is revealed, trusts are broken and an Agent makes a fateful decision that will forever change the NCIS. Please Review but please don't reveal what happens in the revie
1. Angel in the Outfield

Disclaimer: Belisarius Productions owns NCIS. I don't even own Abby, Michelle or Ziva - frack.  
This is my fourth NCIS Mystery, all following one progression, you can find these and later stories listed in order in my Profile. While the mysteries stand alone, the back stories cover a progression commencing during the fourth Season of the Series.  
These stories are fiction. There's no similarity to any person, living or dead.  
Perspective: This story takes place a week after 'The Wiccan Affair', so there will be some references to it that you may want to familiarize yourself with.  
Rating: T - or NCis-17. Occasional violence, descriptions of autopsy, forensic evidence, frank adult topics.  
Please review.

Sacramental Seal  
By JMK758  
Prologue

It's not often that Special Agent Tony DiNozzo has a Wednesday off but Optional Days are something not even his boss, Deputy SAIC Leroy Jethro Gibbs, can do much about. The fact that Tony can spend this early August morning with a dozen good friends playing baseball in Coleman Park is icing on the cake.

He's playing right field in the warm sunshine, dressed in a Redskins t-shirt and shorts, when Tom Harris, out sick from work with a bad case of Recurrent Spring Fever, hits a screaming fly ball which shows every sign of being a home run. Tony charges back, glances back several times to judge the distance of the oncoming ball.

He'd been wrong. The wind caught the ball and drives it further right toward the line of waist high hedges that mark the edge of the open space and the border of the small grove of trees. It might be a foul ball, strike one, but Tony has no intention of letting it get away. If it descends on this side of the hedges it'll be an easy out. If it goes beyond, Tony's determined to vault the hedges to make it a spectacular out. Either way, Tom will learn the price of playing 'hooky'.

All this goes through Tony's mind in a few seconds, for as he runs it it's clear he must vault the low hedge.

With the superlative reflexes that make Anthony DiNozzo a legend in his own mind he makes his leap, chooses his landing spot as his view clears the top of the hedges. He reaches for the oncoming ball, glances down for an instant to mark his landing and surprise freezes him. He comes down wrong, falls off his feet, twists barely in time to land in an unspectacular heap upon his butt before he rolls out of the crash.

The ball drops seven feet behind him. He doesn't glance back to see it bounce further.

"Come on, DiNozzo, that was an easy out," Pitcher Carl Hallowell calls from the mound.

"Come on, Tony, get the ball. You're holding up the game," Center Fielder Mike Analone admonishes him a few seconds later.

Tony stands up and can see over the straight top of the hedges. Everyone's looking impatiently at him, but he barely hears them as he looks down to what had so thoroughly distracted him.

He glances back up to the field and sees Analone approaching in a loping run. "Hey Tony, are you com–"

"Stop where you are," DiNozzo commands his surprised friend. "No one comes any closer." He'll have to mark his own footsteps approaching the hedge and the marks of his ignominious fall.

"What's up?" Analone is too surprised by the imperious order to be annoyed by it. The others also stop where they are. DiNozzo looks down; the only one who can see the woman's nude body.

x

She lies on her back beside a hole that can only be the start of a grave. Apparently about 30 with long blonde hair and an exceptional figure, her flesh is scored by a mélange of smeared bloody lines. Gouged flesh crisscrosses her body; much of her skin's upper layer has been torn away in livid furrows from shoulders to hips, lines of blood trailing from the front of her body down each side. Though she's bled profusely, the dry ground beneath her has no marks. The blood that flowed from her wounds lines in all directions, testifying to the violence of her death. Her face is the only part of her body he can see that the blood flowed consistently in one direction, it's run in downward rivulets, this blood already long dried from vertical wounds incised into her forehead.

All DiNozzo can pick out in identification is a familiar tattoo well forward on her right hip. The black emblem, an inch high anchor joined to the world, had been spared the ravages of whatever she'd endured before she'd died. His only other clue is that she's a natural blonde.

"Sorry, guys," DiNozzo calls to his friends. "Game called on account of death."

Chapter One  
Angel in the Outfield

In the Operations Section of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Headquarters, Leroy Jethro Gibbs puts down his phone and looks across the irregular square of desks, starts to address Special Agent Tim McGee but his desk's vacant. A glance to the right; McGee's behind his partner's desk, leaning over Officer Ziva David's shoulder at her monitor, but his view also pushes the limits. "_McGee_."

"Er, yes, boss?" He looks over, no guilt in his eyes.

"When you're done playing peekaboo, grab your gear."

"I wasn't..." Ziva just looks back and up at him, a sultry smile on her lips as she presses her blouse more securely to her chest.

"Let's roll, people," he tells the pair, not allowing McGee a moment to protest his innocence. He _is _innocent, he hadn't crossed the line - yet - but there are times Gibbs feels he has to watch both of them.

He pulls open his drawer, takes out his shield and gun and touches a button on his phone, sending an automatic signal.

Coming around his desk, he tosses the van keys to Ziva, but then reconsiders. Not pausing on his way to the elevator, he plucks them from her hand and pushes them into McGee's.

Ziva's affronted, looks from Tim to Gibbs' retreating back. McGee can only give her a 'what can you do' shrug.

"It was only a little dent."

"Come on, people, before DiNozzo has 'Angels in the outfield'."

The two hurry after him, neither wanting to interpret that one.

xx

Donald Mallard's blue and white ME truck is always kept fully stocked and ready for rapid departures, because under Gibbs' direction there are no other kinds. With their equipment and field gear already stored, he and his Assistant Jimmy Palmer can move very fast, but sometimes even this isn't enough to satisfy an impatient Gibbs. Nonetheless, this time the Examiners arrive in the basement parking area scant seconds after the Agents.

"What do we have, Jethro?" Ducky inquires as he and Palmer head to their truck and McGee and Ziva board their own.

"DiNozzo has a body in Coleman Park."

"Navy or Marine?" They handle no other type of investigation, so it's an easy guess.

Gibbs is already getting into his car. "Looks like Marine. He's secured the scene and is waiting for us."

"What do we know about our latest charge?"

He closes his door, ready to begin. "Only that she has a Corps tattoo."

'Well,' Ducky thinks, 'whomever the body does ultimately turn out to be, I'll be sure she receives appropriate respectful attention.'

"We'll be right behind you," he calls from the ME truck. "Try not to shatter any speed regulations. Speed is essential _prior_ to a murder, not after."

"Just try to keep up when I break Mach 1." No matter how much advice he receives, he's going to do things as he always does: his way. He drives up the ramp at least 10 miles per hour faster than Ducky would take it. Ziva exits even faster.

Mallard shakes his head, gives a sigh of long suffering and closes the door. "Tally ho, Mister Palmer."

xxx

When the three vehicles skirt the outfield in Coleman Park, DiNozzo is waiting by the far right corner beside the long, waist high hedge. He's dressed in a Redskins tee shirt, shorts and sneakers and there are a dozen similarly dressed men waiting a few yards away.

DiNozzo had told his friends to keep their distance to preserve the scene, but once each had gotten a look from center field, nothing will drive them further away until their curiosity is sated.

The teams assemble beside the Field Agent and look over the three foot high line to get their first view of the body. "Oh, dear," is all Ducky has to say.

x

In death the statuesque blonde woman is still lovely. Her long, flowing hair reaches past her forearms and, as DiNozzo had wisely omitted from his initial report, there's no doubt that the color is natural. The only thing adorning her body is the Marine tattoo forward on her right hip.

Unfortunately, beautiful as she was in life, before death she'd been savagely tortured. Her body is striped with deep livid marks from shoulders to hips, blood and deeply carved wounds crisscross her in a brutal roadmap of pain. Some of the long gouges look to be a half inch deep and, from the way some of the bloody lines disappear behind her, the assault presumably covers her on all sides. Deep though much thinner furrows, almost like nearly parallel knife wounds, are cut into her forehead and trails of dried blood line down her face. The marks are visible under her hairline on each side of her head and brown blood cakes her blonde hair.

She lies on her back, arms at her sides. At first glance she might appear to be asleep, but nothing mimics the motionless of death. Her breasts are high and firm, waist slim and hips generous, her legs are long and sleek ... but there seems to be no gross cause of death. Though her wounds, which scoured off the upper layer of her flesh, were undoubtedly painful, they don't appear fatal. Her breasts are covered with teeth marks. More than bitten, she appears to have been chewed.

The only other clue is the shallow hole beside her body, which starts at her bare feet and goes up to her knees. There's no shovel or other implement in sight, and they can only speculate her killer was interrupted. This is as much as can be discerned from the field side of the hedges.

x

"DiNozzo, what can you tell us besides the obvious?" Gibbs asks his Senior Field Agent.

"Besides the obvious? Nada. Those are my marks," he says, referring to coins placed along his footsteps on this side of the hedge and the disturbed earth beyond. He'd had nothing else with which to distinguish the trail or his landing spot.

"All right. McGee, pictures, DiNozzo, sketch." McGee passes over the large pad and set of pencils. "Ziva, walk the area, look for everything. By the way, DiNozzo, welcome back to work."

"Thanks, Boss." He's far from pleased. When he'd met his friends for this early morning game before the weather would turn too hot to enjoy it, he'd expected a fuller day.

"Ducky…"

The man cuts him off as only he may. "After they're finished I'll give you a report."

xx

It takes little time for McGee and DiNozzo to collect a complete series of photos and triangulated drawings, both distant and close to the body, allowing Mallard and Palmer to step over the barrier and begin their examination. In addition to the body, there are some partial impressions of what seem to be sneakers 'below' the base of the hole, but the nearly barren ground is dry and firm. The short grass is spotty around the body, and it's clear the hedge is the limit of tended ground. There's not enough loose dirt for the area to yield suitable impressions.

After a few minutes, Ducky calls to Gibbs and the three Field Agents draw close as well to hear the preliminary findings.

"As you can see," he says, pointing to the woman's breasts, "there are numerous dental impressions."

"She was bitten."

"This goes more to the level of 'tortured', Jethro. Most of these impressions are quite deep, even though none have pierced the skin. We will get some useful dental impressions; I only hope they yield up a suspect." He's offended by what's been done to this young woman and doesn't care to be discreet. The degree of violence inflicted upon this unfortunate young lady is utterly appalling. "I should place the time of death to be no more than minutes after those injuries were inflicted. I'll know more when I get her on my table. Notice the tattoo."

"I have," Gibbs says dryly.

"Of course." He's sorry for having stated the obvious. The black tattoo, about an inch wide and forward on her right hip, is a Marine insignia.

"She's had that mark for a while," Gibbs concludes.

"Yes. If it were fresh, there would be considerable redness all about the area and the mark would have to be kept moist with gel. While it has not lost the crisp definition and color of older samples, I'd say t is sample is almost certainly less than five years old."

"Interesting place for it," DiNozzo remarks, little to Ducky's sense of propriety. "Yes, the placement is significant. Normally it would not be seen except by those she was presumably intimate with." He looks over the body as a whole. "I can never understand why anyone, particularly so lovely a young woman, would consent to have her body marked in such a way."

"Talk to Abby about that," Gibbs advises. The Forensic Scientist's has an impressive and still growing collection of significant tattoos. He's seen as many as six, but he has assurances from her that there are about ten more that he'll never see.

"Yes. Well, there is no apparent fatal wound unless it is under her. Lividity seems fixed, though it's inconclusive that she was lying on her back when she died. It gives me only a preliminary time of death as being by or prior to 2 AM."

"What about the cuts? Ever see anything like them?"

"Too soon to be certain, though I have my suspicions."

"Care to share?"

"No. There are no signs of struggle surrounding the body and she has been savagely tortured, so I don't believe she was killed here. Give me a hand, Mr. Palmer."

Together they partially turn her so they may see her back. Her arms don't move, nor do the lower legs, her limbs following the body stiffly. Her back is deep purple from shoulders to ankles, yet nearly white where her body had pressed most firmly on the uneven ground. The deep gouging of her flesh looks even worse for the forced away blood.

"I would say she'd been placed here within two hours after death; almost certainly no more. Her flesh has been subjected to the same ravages in back as in front, but lividity," he tells the gathered agents, "has settled in her back; it's too soon as yet to determine if it's fixed. As you see, there's less to her buttocks and the backs of her legs, as one might expect in the case of a fatal wound to the torso, yet I can find no wounds beyond the obvious damage to the epidermis."

Supporting her body on her side, he points to her hands locked beside her. "Her wrists are deeply indented with what appears to be rope, forward of her left wrist, back here on her right. The fact that her wrists haven't returned to a natural condition indicates that she was bound up to the moment of death."

The men allow her body to lay flat. "The wounds on her body, particularly where they are interrupted behind her but mark her arms, indicate she was very likely whipped while her hands were bound behind her back. Rigor to the arms and legs; I'd estimate the time at about twelve to sixteen hours ago, I'll have more to give you later." The man reminds him 'once again' of what he knows so well, that the search for evidence is a painstaking and time consuming process.

Gibbs looks to his team. "All right, get to work."

x

Before they may do so, however, the sound of a helicopter's rotors approaches, grows loud and halts overhead. They look up, seeing a Network News chopper hovering, even from this high they can pick out a camera trained upon them.

"It figures they'd show up soon," DiNozzo gripes, wondering which of his friends gathered several yards back had been the one to call them while he wasn't looking. It's only a matter of time now before the cars, vans and trucks arrive.

"I'm not done yet," Ducky says crossly, looking up at the offending helicopter hovering loudly above them, then down at the naked woman, "but they are going to turn this poor woman's death into a circus for their fabled _ratings_."

"No, they're not," Gibbs declares tightly. "DiNozzo, McGee." He points to the folded white sheet in the Examiner's supplies. The men don't have to be told.

Opening the sheet, which will be used later to cover the body, they stand beyond the woman's head and feet, each holding two corners. The white cloth allows enough light for Ducky and Jimmy to work by, but over their heads the sheet forms an adequate shield against the camera.

DiNozzo smiles up at the frustrated crew.

xxx

It's an hour later when Donald Mallard and Jimmy Palmer return to their lab, Palmer wheeling a gurney before him. The Local and Network News vehicles had arrived not long after the helicopter had, but by then the Examiners were finished and the body properly covered. DiNozzo and McGee had established a perimeter, beyond which the frustrated newshounds couldn't pass. When the team was leaving one of the reporters had tried to 'buttonhole' Gibbs into an interview – never the wise move.

Not slowing down, he'd replied to only one question, the name of the victim, with a terse "Jane Doe".

Now Jimmy pushes the wheeled cart containing the body of 'Jane Doe' beside the first of three metal examining tables. Then Ducky pulls down the zipper of the long black bag, revealing the once lovely woman. The front of her body is covered with thick and thin trails of blood, appallingly deep long wounds and yet too pale, the wounds standing out in sharp relief.

Taking position at her head, Ducky places his hands under her arms, Jimmy taking her legs. They lift the woman off the gurney, out of the bag and onto the cold examination table. Though she's been measured at five foot nine, her bloody body looks small and forlorn.

"I'm sorry that it's cold, my dear," Mallard says quietly and with sincere sympathy, looking past the trails of dark dried blood that line downward along her face, centering on her closed eyes. "Once we get the light on, things will warm up nicely."

James Palmer has long ago become accustomed to his boss' predilection of talking to his charges as though they're still alive and have feelings for what's being done to them. He'd asked about this once and Ducky'd explained that what's done in the course of an autopsy is the most personally invasive act that will ever be inflicted upon a fellow human being. This is his way, and he feels it's an important way, of connecting with and relating to his charges. He can never forget that these are human beings, once as vital and alive as he is, and their dignity needs to be observed and preserved even, or especially, in death.

Thus, Mallard speaks to his charges, relating to them as though they are still alive, still aware. To date, as he'd said, not one of them has ever replied, something for which Palmer suspects they're both equally grateful.

Having carried the woman's legs while lifting her onto the table, Palmer had been unable to avoid noticing something extremely disturbing. "Doctor, you're going to want to see this. I mean, you _won't_ want to see this. I mean–" He gives up. There's no point, the evidence will speak for itself.

The older man comes closer and there's absolutely no need for Palmer to elaborate on what he's discovered. "Oh dear," he looks up at the woman's face, "I am so sorry, my dear."

xxx

Abby Sciuto sits at her desk in her lab halfway under the ground in a black mood. She's not happy. She is not happy at all.

She's beyond frustrated, beyond furious. Despite her best efforts, she's unable to let go of her feelings, nor tolerate the injustice of the situation. _She_ is the one Tim is interested in, if only he can get his nose out of a computer long enough to _realize_ it. She'd worked for months – _months_ – to get through to him. Even when she'd been in 'protective custody' in his apartment over a year ago she'd walked about in a small tight t-shirt and very tiny panties, had told him to forego the sleeping bag, that they're adults and can share the same bed - and he _still_ can't get the hint.

And now, seemingly seconds after she'd been removed from the playing field through her 'enforced vacation', that dark tramp with her exotic accent and mysterious ways made her move.

Well, it is not over yet, not by a damned inch. Ziva David might have drawn first blood, but the war is just _beginning_ and she has too much at stake to give up.

Granted, she'd lost ground, but she knows Tim longer, knows him better and all Ziva had done is to up the ante. She may have drawn first blood, but the next one to _bleed_ will be–.

x

Her mental rant is cut short by the ringing of her phone. She snatches it up and stops herself in mid-breath rather than snap her outrage at the unknown caller. "NCIS; Forensics. Oh, _Hi_, Jimmy," her anger evaporates, "Ducky wants me? That's so _sweet_! I want him too." She grins at the image of her flummoxed friend's face. She feels she shouldn't tease him so, but it's so much fun. She allows the man to find his voice and tell her the reason for his call. "Sure, I'll be right down."

She hangs up the phone, heads for the sliding glass door, and considers restraining herself from any more deviltry . But she dismisses the idea. Why should she miss any fun?

xx

While Palmer was talking to Abby, Ducky continued his examination. What he's found under the intense light isn't at all pleasant.

When Palmer returns, Ducky sends him back to the phone, this time to summon the Investigators. The younger man doesn't wonder at his mentor's grim tone or distressed expression. He knows he'll find out the reason soon enough.


	2. Dark Confession

Chapter Two  
Dark Confession

When the agents arrive in Autopsy, DiNozzo having changed from Redskins tee shirt and shorts into more appropriate attire, Abby Sciuto is already there. The three Scientists cluster about the silver metallic table upon which lay the nude body of their latest mystery. All three are equally grim.

Abby, other than her white lab coat, is shocking to those who meet her for the first time. So 'Goth' she can give East Village New Yorkers lessons, she wears a silver spiked dog collar and matching leathern wristbands, black t-shirt with day-glow red letters proclaiming that '_Vampires aren__'__t the only ones who do it in the dark_', a _really_ short blood red leather skirt decorated with skulls and crossbones, black fishnet stockings and red shoes with three inch high heels so that she's even taller than Palmer, much more so than Ducky. She's taken to wearing black fishnets at every opportunity since learning on a recent case of Tim McGee's affection for the style. It's a distraction she's happy to see works very well; she frequently catches him noticing her legs when he thinks she's not noticing.

It's especially satisfying since Ziva, with her own fashions, can't take advantage of the knowledge with the frequency that she can.

War might be hell, but Abby's starting to enjoy fighting it.

x

"What've you got?" Gibbs asks as he passes through the sliding glass doors. It's far too soon for the autopsy to have progressed beyond the initial 'External Examination' stage, so he's curious as to what's prompted the early summons.

"Here you are, Abigail," Ducky concludes his conversation with Abby, handing her several small plastic envelopes containing sample cases. "That piece there," he indicates a sample case that looks empty, "came from one of the wounds gouged into her forehead, this one," he indicates a cut just forward of the woman's left temple, then points to each sample in her hands in turn. "Fingernail scrapings as marked and swabs from her breasts and," he glances up at her, then at the just arrived Ziva, "elsewhere."

"I'll let you know as soon as I have anything," she assures him. Far from her usual joie de vivre, she can't keep the grimness from her voice; she's _seen_ the 'elsewhere'.

Ducky's calling her Abigail, against her explicit wishes, is enough to tell the assembled agents that the man's distressed indeed.

The seven surround the table upon which the unfortunate woman lies. The only 'adornment' on her body, and possible clue to her identity, is the small black tattoo on the front of her right hip. It's up to Abby to provide the fingerprint and DNA analyses that will lead to a true identification.

"Something particularly disturbing, I'm afraid," Ducky finally answers Gibbs' question. "At least, _I_ am disturbed by it." He's sure the others will feel the same about his discoveries. Abby raises a hand, silently adding her vote. Palmer just nods, looking both disturbed and disgusted. The four agents are in no hurry to see what's unsettled the jaded examiners.

Ducky takes a step to his right and puts his hands under the blonde woman's knees. "I am truly sorry about this, my dear," he tells her sympathetically, then looks up in cautioning manner to his friends. "This will be unpleasant," he says, mostly in an apologetic tone to Abby and Ziva, conscious of the women's sensitivities.

Ziva's often told him there is no need for such Chivalric courtesies – she has seen her fill of more than she will ever admit to – but he does it nonetheless. She notes, however, that Abby looks away. The woman is no weakling, Ziva admits, so she prepares herself.

The other Agents, battle-tested veterans though they are, also brace themselves, If Ducky feels the need to warn them this extensively then 'unpleasant' is undoubtedly an understatement.

It is.

x

Ducky partially spreads the woman's thighs and when Ziva sees what he would have shielded her from, she's grateful for his concern. She contains her shock and outrage, and a glance at Tony shows him as stone-faced as she's ever seen him, his lips pressed so tightly together they appear nearly fused. McGee looks ill.

"That's enough." Gibbs says tightly.

"I quite agree." Ducky says, his grim voice shows that he's passed his personal limits. He presses the poor woman's legs firmly together, deeply offended by what he'd been obliged to reveal to the Investigators.

"Okay, if these are all your samples so far, I'm out of here," Abby declares.

"I do not blame you in the least, my dear," he replies, but when he looks up to her he discovers he's speaking to empty air. The glass doors leading to the elevator opened as he spoke and are already closing.

Mallard steps up toward the woman's torso, pointing to her breasts, not wanting to continue this outrageous litany. He's sure the look in the eyes of Timothy McGee, which he'd briefly caught, is a reflection of his own.

"_These_ bite marks are inflicted not long before death and we will be able to obtain excellent dental impressions. There is a considerable interval between the infliction of each. Some were inflicted early on, others not long before death."

"She was tortured." There's nothing Gibbs hates worse than the abuse of a woman or a child. Far more than his detestation of such bullies as 'Greg Martin' of their last case, this sparks a deeper outrage only one such as Ducky, who knows him so well, can read in his hard eyes and carefully controlled manner.

"For a considerable period," Mallard grants regretfully. "The damage to the tissues indicates significant distress and does not entirely relate to the bites. I'll know more when I get some x-rays and will be able to give you a more accurate estimation of her age. As you can see, she appears to have been whipped, though the damage is extreme. The upper layer of flesh has been torn off, at points a quarter inch into the flesh, leaving these deep lacerations. I'll be able to tell you what made them once I begin my examination.

"In the meantime, I'll be forwarding additional samples to Abby for testing." He looks down at the young blonde woman between them. "Do not worry, my dear, we will find out who you are and who did this to you," his words are a low and deadly promise, "and he will _pay_."

xxx

An attempt to identify an unknown person usually starts with such things as fingerprints and 'Missing Persons' reports. Without further clues, McGee and Ziva share the chore of searching for a blonde Caucasian woman in her late twenties to early thirties who may or may not have been reported 'missing', somewhere in the county, during an unknown time period. The Corps connection may prove the most useful clue if she was a Marine and not the dependant of one.

To DiNozzo falls the unenviable task of picking up the trail from the opposite end. Armed with photographs of 'Jane Doe', he returns to the park and commences a canvas of the houses that surround it, hoping that someone, somewhere, had seen the blonde beauty and will admit to it.

Gibbs, following up the only other available clue, concentrates on blonde Marine Corps women, with particular note of missing or UA personnel.

He wishes Abby good and speedy luck with her DNA and fingerprint searches and Ducky and Palmer with the evidence they're collecting. Abby will require about 16 hours for a complete DNA scan, while fingerprints will take an unknown - though hopefully shorter - amount of time to match. It could be hours or his phone could ring within the minute. He doesn't believe in any such luck. Not for the first time, he's at the Forensic Scientist's mercy.

As usual, the first phase is up to them.

xxx

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory of Saint Mary the Virgin Church, one of two Priests in the Church whose membership exceeds nine hundred souls, hears the door to the small enclosure next to hers open and shut. She closes her red leather bound 'Book of Common Prayer', puts the book down upon her lap, straightens the two long purple ends of the stole that drapes about her neck so they hang straight over her knees, beyond the length of her calf length black skirt.

There's a small screen to her left that separates her booth from the adjoining one. But where hers is dimly lit, well enough that she can read with only a little strain, the booth next to hers is black. The way the light in her booth touches the foot square material that separates the booths ensures that the Penitent may see at least enough to distinguish who's here, nothing of the other booth shows through.

From long experience, she knows she can barely be distinguished, but it's only by the sound of movement inside that she can be sure anyone is there. Nonetheless, she removes her gold framed glasses, her dim mahogany enclosure instantly reduced to a soft blur, a wood-colored cloud.

She knows that with her first word the Penitent on the other side of the screen will know he or she is speaking to the Parish's woman Priest, even if a distinct Irish brogue didn't 'give her away'; but even if _she _recognizes the other voice, the rules of the Confessional dictate that she has no idea who she's dealing with.

"The Lord be in your heart and upon your lips that you may truly and humbly confess your sins; in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

Normally a Penitent will make him or herself known by this point, but she can hear only breathing. After a few seconds of this silence, she says. "Hear the Word of God to all who truly turn to him; 'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world'."

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," a rasping whisper, an effort to disguise a voice, be it familiar or no, comes through the screen.

She'd accepted, virtually from the day of her Ordination nine years ago, that most people simply do not know how to deal with, or even address, a woman Priest. She'd long ago ceased to mind, 'hearing' the correct appellation even in the wrong words. "Our Lord will guide you to true repentance and remission of your sins."

"My last confession was a month ago," the voice rasps. "But since then, I've done something terrible. Something awful; I–" the male voice hesitates. "Are you able to see me?"

"No, my son, I can't." She restrains an ironic smile. Without her thick lenses, she can't see her own hand inches from her face. "You may speak in complete confidence."

"Well, you see, there was this woman, you know – and … you'll never forgive me."

She's heard this 'assurance' so many times. "Jesus forgives all who are repentant of their sins. He loves you and wants you to turn from sin and return to Him."

x

He's silent for a long time, but then admits that "She an' I, we were - that is we ..." The words die a lingering death.

"Had sex?" Sometimes a Penitent needs help getting his thoughts into words. Especially, it often seems, when discussing sex with a woman.

"Yeah, that's it, had sex. But it was all wrong," the voice continues in barely intelligible rasping. "Went all wrong. I'm so sorry- so very, very sorry. But she looked so - so good with that crown on her head." He says nothing more.

"Crown?" she asks into his pause.

"I need to know I can be forgiven."

"Our Lord knows what is in your heart and forgives all who are truly penitent and confess their sins. Remember He loves you." She waits until he absorbs this, senses there's far more to the story, more that he wants - _needs_ to - tell. "Why do you feel guilty about this?"

"Well, Fath– Reverend - it wasn't - _exactly_ - her idea."

"Was it against her will?" She waits, there's no denial. There's no answer at all. Feeling it's time to put the matter to a head, she asks softly: "Did you rape her?"

The man's answer seems to take forever; and then is the quietest of strained whispers. "Yes."

x

Reverend O'Mallory considers her next point carefully. That he knows what he did is wrong is obvious by his presence and tones of remorse. It's time to move on to the Reconciliation phase. "For true reconciliation, you have to make your peace with this woman."

"I can't do that."

So many can't face the ones they'd offended, or think they can't. "Why not?"

"She - that is she - well; she kind of ... died."

x

Her blood chills. "Did you kill her?"

"_No_!" The exclamation is barely kept low enough for privacy. He lowers his voice further, to a barely intelligible rasping whisper. "I don't know what happened. She got this - this look on her face - and she went all stiff like - an' then she just stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped ..." His whisper trails off, then returns in a flood of fear. "I freaked – I got so scared! I _tried_ - I couldn't help her!"

"I understand," Siobhan says consolingly, not wanting him to build into panic. After a moment, when she can hear his breath return to normal, she says softly; "You know what you have to do."

"The police?" She doesn't answer. There's no need. "I can't. I'm scared."

"I can help you." The words are out of her mouth before she can bite them back, but she means them. She's not supposed to get involved; to do so would lead to the identity of the penitent, but there are conditions when it is permitted, particularly in the new Rite of Reconciliation, if she keeps everything absolutely secret yet help him to make a confession he wants to make. She decides she'll try to act as an intermediary, see that he gets a fair hearing. If this was an accident, or some tragic ... something, she can't reveal anything he tells her, but she can facilitate a resolution, can provide a safe haven for him to reveal it to others.

"No one can help me. They'll _kill_ me."

"No one will kill you," she admonishes. She's speaking to his fear, she wants to speak to him. "You can turn yourself over here. You'll be safe with us. There will be no force, no guns. We'll call someone you can trust. If you want, you can have someone with you."

"I don't want anyone to know. _You _won't tell them, will you?"

"I can't." O'Mallory tells him definitely. "What is said in here I can never reveal to anyone. I can never speak of it. I can't even discuss it with _you_ without your permission."

"Forgive me? I won't agree to _anything_ unless you Absolve me."

x

This she believes. She also believes his remorse. She raises her hand toward the screen; in her thoughts reaching out to touch him. "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive you all your offences; and by His authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins; In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

"Thank you!" he whispers with immense gratitude.

"Now there is rejoicing in Heaven, for you were lost and are found; you were dead and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Lord has put away all your sins."

"Thanks be to God," he whispers gratefully, but she's not done with him.

"Now listen, when you leave here, go directly to the pew outside your door and wait. I will be out in a moment. We'll go into my office and I'll help you make the call."

There's long silence - very long. "All right." His voice is a mixture of resignation and resolve. Without another word, the door opens and he's gone.

x

Mother O'Mallory sits still for a few seconds, working to compose herself. She realizes she's shaking. She takes a deep breath, holds it and the eases it out very slowly, working to calm herself. She doesn't want anything she's thinking to show on her face or in her manner. She touches the button in the ledge beside her, turning off the red pin light that is the signal that a Priest is available. She'll ask Father Donaldson to take the remaining time in the hour, she'll need the office to herself and the penitent anyway.

She focuses on calming herself and stands up, holding her closed book, puts on her gold framed glasses and a mask of serenity.

When she pushes open her door, now in sight of any parishioners present, her face is empty.

So, unfortunately, is the pew immediately outside the booths.

x

She looks about, carefully not dropping her mask. In the spacious Gothic church are five people; Marjorie Fulton and Mary Carter, both participants in the Senior Nutrition Program, are across from her on the Gospel or right side of the wide Church near the statue of St. Ann, Mother of Mary. Charlie Morley, the Gardener, is in his usual pew near the Epistle lectern, close to the front corner door that leads out to the Greenhouse and the garden beyond. Helen Craig is departing the Church through the main doors to her far left. Up in the Choir Loft elevated above those Narthex doors, Handyman Mark Jordan labors quietly at the organ.

Nowhere in sight is there a man who has just confessed to rape and worse.

x

There's nothing she can do. Had he remained, she would have done all within her power to help him. Now she can only pray he will find the strength to help himself. She'll also pray for the unfortunate, unnamed woman who has suffered so.

Turning about, she encloses herself within the Confessional booth.

It's several minutes before the red light over her door goes on.

xxx

"Ah, Mr. Palmer, this is going to go down in my recollection as my least favorite summer," Ducky says as he explores the interior of the woman's chest. A 'Y' incision from her shoulders to breastbone, then downward past her navel to her crotch, have opened her body wide.

Palmer, having long ago grown used to the older man's twists of thought, can only inquire: "In what way, Doctor?" Their voices are slightly distorted by the protective plastic masks which cover their faces.

He certainly knows why _he_ doesn't like these past two weeks. It's just last week that he had to murder a man 'in cold blood'. True, he'd done it to save a woman's life, and had been declared not to be culpable in the death, but that's neither balm for his conscience nor ease for his nightmares. He's been seeing the NCIS Psychiatrist daily since that horrific morning, and figures he should be back to normal in, say, fifteen to twenty years. But he wonders what prompts his senior to his view.

"Well, let us review our recent major cases that reflect upon this one. There was the incident at the Hotel Maritz, where three young ladies were tortured, raped and two were murdered in the grizzliest fashion. The dénouement of that catastrophe was Officer David suffering the same horrors and almost dying from electrocution. Then there were the three assaults in Clarkston Lakes, two of which could possibly have been prevented if not for the convolutions of the Law. Though the perpetrator of those perversions was punished in what I'm inclined to think is fitting fashion, the victims of that atrocious series of violations, as well as their families, still suffer the consequences.

"Then there was the murder of Petty Officer Kane and the disastrous consequences of that incident, resulting in the assault upon two young women, one of whom being our own Agent Lee." That's something Jimmy will never forget nor quickly forgive.

"And we can't forget what you personally are suffering, something I would not wish upon the worst malefactor.

"By my count of the unfortunate women involved in these four cases alone, there are four dead, eight raped, six tortured, five beaten - two presently still hospitalized, one of whom will be unable to speak for quite some time - and two, that I am aware of, undergoing therapy. This, Mr. Palmer, has been one _hell_ of a summer - and it has only begun."

x

"But it hasn't been all bad," Palmer protests, determined to put his own memories aside and focus on finding something good. "Look at what happened with Agent McGee and Ziva. Call me a hopeless romantic–"

"You're a hopeless romantic."

Jimmy grins. 'I did ask for it.' "But I really see the possibility of their making something out of this; whereas I–" He shuts up, but it's too late. Ducky looks up at him.

"Yes, Mr. Palmer? Whereas you...?" Knowing what the young man has been going through - guilt and regret are powerful demons - Mallard is surprised to find far more hope in his protégé's voice than he had expected.

"W-well," he stammers, "I - I just believe there are some things that came out of this that are good." Not for anything would he dare to reveal the truth about himself and Michelle Lee.

"Perhaps you're right," Ducky concedes. "You will be sure to let me know if you find anything, won't you?"

"Yes, Doctor."

x

"In the meantime," Mallard says, turns his attention to and addresses the unfortunate woman between them, "I believe I have found your cause of death. Look here," he directs Palmer.

Jimmy follows the older Doctor's direction. "That's what killed her?"

"Have you any doubt?" Ducky asks. To him it's so obvious he'd hate to think that the young man can't see it. The side of her heart had ruptured, literally blown outward with such force it ruptured the pericardium as well. There's so much blood suffusing the surrounding tissues that it had almost obscured the hole, but it's over two inches wide.

"No, Doctor." 'What must it take to burst it like that?' he wonders. "I was just - well, considering all that happened to her I was expecting," he gathers his thoughts, admitting, "well, I can't really get my mind off all this torture. How anyone could do this much … this whipping is worse than I've seen in years." The savage brutality that marks her flesh has shaken and disgusted him.

"Well, she was not actually 'whipped', my boy."

"No?" What does the man mean?

"No. Actually, she was _scourged_." He indicates the wounds that crisscross her flesh, deep marks that have torn the skin from her flesh, leaving bloody trails covering her from shoulders to hips. "Note the deep incising wounds. In olden days punishment was not limited to whipping: a victim had what was known as a 'scourge' used upon him. A leather flogger made up of eight or nine straps had small pieces of jagged metal attached to the ends. The purpose of these metal shards was to _rip_ the flesh away, providing far more damage and pain than ordinary leather could.

"I'd say that, from the positions of these wounds, she was not restrained when they were inflicted, though her hands were clearly bound behind her. She probably tried to evade her assailant, twisting and turning to escape the lashes." He looks down, able to feel only regret. "Unfortunately, she did not make it."

"There are no bruises on the body, beside the bite marks."

"No. I should say, considering the positions of the wounds to her breasts, that those were possibly inflicted _during_ her rapes, while the ones that caused such horrific damage to her genitalia ..." He no longer wants to speculate on such distressing thoughts. "The smeared blood about the marks that cover her body may indicate she was raped after being whipped."

"And then _this_ killed her."

"I would say so." He addresses her in real outrage. "This should have been transplanted or treated years ago. _Properly_." He can see the marks of at least one operation, obviously unsatisfactory. "What were you or your doctor _thinking_?"

"Considering what was happening to her, maybe it's a blessing she went quickly," Palmer mutters.

Ducky stops. She had been subjected to barely imaginable horrors until her heart had ruptured, the organ bursting outward to spew blood all through her chest cavity. But what might have progressed for her if she had not died so suddenly?

Perhaps the young man is correct.

x

Palmer is silent for a long time while Ducky continues his probing. "Doctor?"

"Yes?" When he does not answer, Ducky looks up.

Jimmy has lifted the protective barrier of his mask and his face is very pale, much more so than usual, almost white. "Would you excuse me?"

"Quite all right, my boy, I understand completely."

Palmer doesn't waste a moment, pulls off the mask and his gloves, tosses the latter into a bin on his way to the elevator. He feels an overpowering need for air.

xx

Michelle Lee stands up from her desk in the Legal Department, heading for a filing cabinet when the cell phone at her hip starts to vibrate. She pulls it off, checks the one word text message on the screen. Smiling, feeling intense thrill flare through her, she reattaches the phone to the waistband of her skirt, puts the files away and continues to the door. "I'm just going to go get some air, Patti," she says to her associate.

Exiting the offices, she goes down the corridor, turns right down another long hall, her pace quickening with every step until she's virtually running, glad not to encounter anyone, anticipation and more building in her as she makes another right and 'backtracks' several dozen yards to the end of the corridor. Pausing before a broom closet, she looks back cautiously and pulls the door open.

A hand clutches her wrist and tugs her into the room, the door closing on utter darkness. She doesn't have to see who's there, she knows the feel of his body better than any other. She presses herself close to him, burning excitement mounting by the second, moaning softly into his kiss. She tugs loose blue scrubs and tee shirt over his head, tosses them to the floor so she can immerse herself in his bare torso. She wraps one leg about his, standing held on one foot, her outthrust hips pressed to him, pressing her growing moisture back to her as her soft cries mount in intensity.

But amazingly, his hands push her back.

"What?"

"Shhhh, no," his voice whispers but there's no burning passion in that quiet voice. "Not this time."

"_What_?" She can't believe it. He's been so tortured lately, ever since he'd been forced to shoot that man, but she'd hoped she could make him forget - at least for a moment ...

"Shhhh." His hands on her cheeks hold her still, his lips touch hers. Then, his lips softly pressed to hers, he puts his arms about her, draws her close. His body pressed close to hers, his bare arms embrace her, but there's no fire in him. His lips are warm, the kiss loving and tender, but though he holds her close to him there's no passion burning in him, certainly not the wild chaotic madness they so frequently enjoy in this secluded space. "I'll explain later," he whispers against her lips. "For now, just…" He continues to kiss her, no fire but all tender love.

She decides that she doesn't mind the change at all.


	3. Tracking Jane Doe

Chapter Three  
Tracking Jane Doe

Leroy Jethro Gibbs touches the speaker button on his phone. "Go ahead, Ducky," he says loudly enough to attract McGee and David's attention.

The Medical Examiner makes his report, concluding with: /The cause of death was a catastrophic rupture of her heart. The right ventricle _burst_ under extreme stress, loss of pressure in blood flow to her brain caused her to pass out immediately. Death was almost instantaneous./

"Was this something she'd had for a long time?"

/It was almost certainly congenital, although it developed additional strain in recent years. I find indications of an operation to correct the weakness, perhaps two to three years ago./ His tone gives full measure of his feelings about the adequacy of the job.

"All right, Ducky. Let me know what else turns up." He turns off the speaker and returns to his work.

x

Less than a minute later, McGee calls "Boss?"

"What is it, McGee?"

"The identity of Jane Doe," he reports, glancing up from his monitor. Gibbs fixes him with a brief stare which prompts the younger Agent to reach for the control to the plasma screen set between his and DiNozzo's desks. Upon it appears the Marine Corps Identification of a young woman, the same face they'd last seen in the park.

She wears a dress uniform blazer, a white hat with a gold band and on her collars are the insignia of a Marine Lieutenant.

"She's 2nd Lieutenant Christina Dumas, 26 years old, born in Dade County, Florida."

"Discharged when?"

"She's still on Active Duty."

Gibbs doesn't shout '_What_?' across the room; he lets his glare express his feeling at this ludicrous assertion.

"With Ducky's report, I narrowed the search to those who have heart conditions but who are still Serving. I figured it was better to look for the _unusual_ before scanning _all_ the past Corps women. From there it was a quick match."

"Well, yeah, McGee, she's probably on a damned short list. Why's she Active with a heart condition that serious?"

"She received a Deferred Duty assignment from the Marines twenty three months ago. She survived two operations in the past three years, but the Marines deemed her unfit for Active duty."

"Of _course_she's unfit!" She _should__'__ve _been given a Medical Discharge. "_Why_wasn't she Discharged?"

"She served six years on Active duty in the Mid-East. For the past two she's been in the Recruitment Division. You'll never guess where she's assigned."

Reading the man's face, it's not much of a guess.

x

Three years ago a sniper named Kyle Hendricks had murdered Marine Recruitment Officers, killing two with long range rifle shots. He'd been stopped, with utter finality, by an undercover operation fronted by Gibbs and Caitlin Todd in uniform at the site of the first murder.

"Déjà vu?" Ziva asks.

"I have her address."

"You two get out there." He picks up the phone to call DiNozzo off the search for 'Jane Doe', to direct him to rendezvous with the others at Dumas' address. Finishing that, he decides it's time to see what Abby has turned up.

xx

What Abby, seated on a stool before her freestanding workstation, has turned up is her music. He winces at the barrage of sound that attacks his ears, struggles toward the noise until he is close enough to hit the 'off' button.

"_Gibbs_," she complains in vast annoyance into the silence, "you always do that at the best part!"

"How can you even _think_ with that racket?"

"The rhythm helps."

"There was a rhythm?"

She turns away from him back to her microscope. She can't contain her usual irrepressible good humor, however. "Someday I have to introduce you to 'Pink Floyd'."

"Keep this up; I'll have to introduce you to Sigmund Floyd." She looks back at him, but his smile - and the outré connection - disarm her. The red and white container of 'Caf-Pow' that she hadn't noticed a moment ago helps too .

"What can I do to you?" She takes the container with a smile and draws a huge gulp.

He ignores her intentional 'faux pas'. "You can start with the analysis of 2nd Lieutenant Christina Dumas."

"Ah, so that's who our mystery guest is," she says, steps over to and turns off the Biometric fingerprint scanner and the Electrophoresis DNA machine.

"That's our guest. What can you tell me about her?"

She opens her mouth and nothing comes out.

x

"Abby?"

"Gibbs, when I look at her I think of Dawn," she says feelingly, her expression haunted.

Gibbs remembers Abby's friend, the unfortunate Kindergarten teacher whose life had been so brutally shattered so recently, just a week after Independence Day.

"I sometimes pray there aren't worse sickos in the world than the bastard that hurt her and the others, but I just keep running across more. Take Christina Dumas now: the coward had her hands _tied_ behind her back while he whipped her, probably because she's a Marine and if she were free she'd turn him into a smear on the floor! When I got back here I had to throw up. What this creepaziod did to Dumas, especially between her - well, someone like that shouldn't be allowed to _live_."

He's surprised by her venom. She's usually the happiest person he knows, but everyone has her limits. "Not our call, Abs."

"Should be," she says in sad frustration.

"What have you got that will help me put him away?" he urges, pulling her back to the present, wondering about her sudden plunge into this black mood.

"More dental impressions than I want, but no match on the Sex Crimes Database; which doesn't have all that much to begin with, less than a few hundred thousand in that 'biting' sub-set. Someone has to be classified as a 'biter' _before_ they'll have him on that sub-database and don't get me _started_ on the 'International' part of that name."

Her fire is growing extreme, even despite the horrors she's seen. Normally she's able to separate herself from what she has to investigate. He wonders, thinking of the young blonde kindergarten teacher, if Duma ' superficial resemblance to Caldwell isn't causing Abby more stress than she can deal with.

"Abs?"

"What?"

"You okay?"

She tries to smile, but it comes out sour. "Sure I am. I just get grouchy like this every four weeks or so." The embarrassed realization on his face makes her smile more sincerely. "_Anywho_, I do have something positively hinky. You're gonna love this."

x

Broken out of her dark mood as suddenly as she'd fallen prey to it, she holds up a specimen bag that contains a thin brown object so small he can barely see it. He takes the bag from her; a close examination doesn't help. It's about a third of an inch long, thin and sharp at each end.

"What is it?" he has to ask, thinking that maybe it _is_ time to start seriously considering using glasses - which he _does_ have and uses occasionally and will probably get around to using regularly - some day.

"Ducky found it in one of the vertical cuts in her forehead, near her left temple. It contains traces of enzymes, lectins, superoxide dismutase, vitamins A, C, E, zinc, B-Complex, selenium, manganese, lithium, molybdenum. Care to take a shot?"

It sounds familiar, a combination he he'd not considered since High School chemistry.

"Come on, Gibbs - animal, vegetable or mineral?"

"Vitamins in the wound? Animal."

"_Nngghhnn_!" she replies, pushing an imaginary button on her table. "Vegetable. Specifically: Chlorophyll."

"Chlorophyll?"

"Chlorophyll."

"How did chlor–" Gibbs stops, the answer suggesting itself in all its horror. He turns to the visual 'intercom'. "Get Ducky on this, will you?"

The first time he'd tried to use the unit, she had teased him about how difficult and complex it is and then touched a single button and Ducky's face had appeared.

This time, there's no teasing.

"Ducky?" The man can be seen approaching, he bends down into the camera's view.

*Yes, Jethro?*

"Those bloody scratches on her head contain chlorophyll. Tell me, how many times was Lieutenant Dumas scourged?"

*I counted thirty nine ti–* he's silenced by a dreadful realization. *Oh my God,* he breathes in a dead voice.

"And the wounds on her head appear to come from–"

*–a crown of thorns.*

xxx

"Would you please _talk_ to me?" Michelle Lee implores into the blackness of the small closet. While she certainly doesn't mind that a quickie session of wild shagging has instead turned into a quiet soft 'make-out', she knows there's a reason behind it.

"What do you mean?" the voice asks out of the blackness. Inches from the tall man, she can't see him at all despite the long minutes they have been in here. Sadly, he seems as determined to keep her in the dark figuratively as he is literally.

He knows exactly why she's asking; she knows he's deliberately being obtuse.

"Please, darling, don't make me say what we both know." Arms about him, though he doesn't move she can feel him draw away.

"I don't want to talk about it."

x

She stands for several long moments in silence, just holding him, considering what she can do. Then she does something she would never do for anyone else but someone she loves beyond any other. Slowly, letting him feel her body move against him, she goes down on one knee, then on both, looking up into the blackness, her arms now about his legs.

"Please," she whispers, staring up with the blackness of hell pressing onto her eyes, "I don't beg, ever, but I'm _begging_ you. Let me in."

"Get up," he urges, tries to pull at her arms, but she resists.

"No. If being on my knees to you is what it's going to take for you to open up to me then here I'll stay. And here I'll beg."

"Please..."

"No."

The silence stretches out between them, long, longer, longer. Finally he moves, comes down with her, on his knees in the tight space of the closet.

"What do you want of me?"

"I want to help you," she whispers, puts her arms about his bare chest.

"This isn't something you can wave your wand and solve." He's surprised, and ashamed, to hear her breath break in a sob. "Honey?" Her body is trembling. "'Chelle?"

"I just want to help you," she pleads, unable to hold back her tears, her voice trembling as she cries. "I don't know how, I don't know what to say, but I want to help you."

He gathers her closer, her face wet against his chest. "I'm sorry. I know. I – I just can't seem to help myself."

"I love you. I'd do anything for you – but you won't let me in."

x

"Last night," she says into his chest, _trying_ to stop crying, "I knew it was eating at you – even while you were eating at me – but I couldn't think of what to say." So unlike their usual lovemaking, wild though it is, he had spent the night gratifying her in many ways. But though he'd brought her so many orgasms until she was exhausted, he'd made no effort to consummate the acts.

"I just couldn't – it wouldn't – work," he admits, supremely embarrassed.

"Honey, it's not that. I mean, I know what's causing that, but – oh, _damn_ it, you _know_ what I mean!"

"It's guilt."

"I know that. I'm trying to hel–"

"I _murdered_ a man–"

"Trying to save a woman! You _did_ save her."

"But at too high a–" He winces when her long nails dig into his arms.

"_No_!" Her whispered voice is a quiet scream of frustration and anguish. "You saved her life! _He_ was a murderer, not you. He killed Kane, tried to kill Wood and _me_, tried to kill her again and you stopped him in the only way _possible_!"

He doesn't answer as she clings to him in the blackness. "Jimmy?" The silence is deafening. "Honey?" she implores, trying to keep her misery at bay. "Talk to me?" She can see nothing, hear nothing, and her heart shatters.

"Please, Jimmy?"

"Please talk to me."

"Please."

xxx

Tony DiNozzo, bending most of the city's traffic regulations and seriously warping others, makes it to Lt. Christina Dumas' address seconds ahead of McGee and David. He rendezvous with them on the sidewalk outside a tall apartment house, half-gratified that they're in McGee's car. Had Ziva been driving, the 'Enterprise NX-01' couldn't have beaten her.

"So, what do you figure we'll find when we get up there?" Tony asks, craning his neck to look up at the twelfth floor of the fifteen floor condominium.

"Lt. Dumas's apartment," Ziva reminds him of the very obvious.

"Yeah, but what kind of place? Working girl, business guru, chick apartment? My money's on 'chick'."

"I thought you said you didn't pay for it," she says, feeling she has to find a way to counter her disgust.

"Never have, never will," he assures her, blithely ignoring the dig. He leads them into the building.

x

The Superintendent admits them into Christina Dumas's apartment, distracted enough by their Navy authority to forget about minutia like warrants.

Composed of a living room combined with a kitchenette in front and a bedroom and bath behind, it's just enough - barely - for one person. Neat enough, as one would expect for a Marine Officer, there's very little to indicate any of her interests or habits that might provide a reason for her death.

The framed photos on the walls depict family and friends, some 'formal' pictures, most not. There are some framed documents, primarily Marine Commendations. One photo, prominently displayed over the television, shows Dumas flanked by an older man and woman; she in her Marine uniform, Corporal rank, they beaming proudly beside her.

The Agents spread out, DiNozzo and McGee taking the living room, David going into the bedroom. Though all three wear latex gloves, they touch nothing at first. This initial examination is for photographic evidence of everything in the apartment _in situ_; then it will be time for more detailed searches.

McGee's attention goes to a silver laptop set on the coffee table near the couch, closed but surrounded by numerous papers slightly disarrayed as though she, or someone else, had been looking through them. The laptop is plugged in, and a blinking blue light indicates it's in 'hibernation' mode. It will be interesting to see, when he lifts the lid, what was the last thing she had been working on.

DiNozzo, finished taking pictures in his half of the living room, opens a closet. Within the demarcation of clothing is sharp, the left side given over to Marine uniforms ranging from formal to fatigue, the right side to an assortment of dresses, blouses and skirts. "What do you make of this, McEagle?"

Tim crosses the room, looking into the closet from beside DiNozzo. "No pants." He concludes after a few seconds' inspection.

"I guess she preferred her feminine side off duty."

"Don't let Ziva hear you say that," he advises. He knows she won't appreciate the conclusion that wearing dresses and skirts is the only way a woman can express her 'feminine side'.

x

"Tim," Ziva calls from the bedroom, "you might find this useful." The men join her in the inner room. On the night table to the right of the single bed they find a small grey device, slightly more than 3 ¼ inches wide, 5 long and about ¼ inch high. It has a darker flip open face and a stylus inserted in the left side.

"I haven't seen one of these in years," Tim marvels, bending down to look at it.

"What's so special about it?" Tony asks. The units they used to carry had long ago been replaced by Blackberries. What they look at now is an antique.

"A Casio 'Cassiopeia'; 4 meg memory; calendar, address book, memo section and not a whole lot more. To be useful, you have to pretty much keep deleting old dates. This thing has to be at least five years old. Ziva?"

He waits while she takes several pictures of it in its position and then he flips the lid back and pushes up the plastic grey stylus from its left side, uses it to tap the screen. A monthly calendar page appears black on grey.

"This tells us something about her," Ziva says with satisfaction.

"Yeah, that she doesn't keep up with the times," DiNozzo smirks.

"You don't throw something away just because a new model comes out," Tim admonishes. "At least she didn't."

x

Using the wheel control on the top right side of the device, he scrolls day by day through her upcoming events. As he'd thought, there are no recorded dates prior to the day after tomorrow. Reconstructing any recent appointments will be a chore. Not impossible, depending upon when the memory had last been integrated, but not easy.

"This is interesting."

"What is?" Ziva asks, looking close.

"In the coming month, her most frequently logged Appointments are at 'St. Mary the Virgin Church'. Some have the initials 'EM' next to the appointments; some have 'L', some have 'EV'. Several times the 'EV's happen during the week, those are in the evenings. There are Sunday ones during the day. The 'EM's and 'L's are all on Sundays. Occasionally the 'EM's and 'L's alternate, sometimes they're together. I haven't found a Sunday that doesn't have anything."

"What other appointments are there, Probie?"

"The multiple ones: Gold's Gym Tuesdays and Thursdays, Elaine's Beauty, a couple of appointments with friends Carolyn Inglasis and Jeri Sesa, a few others though those two seem to be regular. Fortunately she used the 'Appointment' feature rather than 'Scheduler', so names and phones link to the events." He continues to examine the calendar, then: "Here's something interesting; she goes to Elaine's Beauty on the Saturdays that precede 'EM's on Sundays. She has an 'EV' at St. Mary the Virgin the day after tomorrow."

"Well then, St. Mary's is our next stop."


	4. Seal of Silence

Chapter Four  
Seal of Silence

The two cars pull to a stop on New York Avenue beside the huge Gothic structure as evening begins to darken the street. Composed primarily of light beige stone, the massive building stands over a hundred fifty feet high at the steeple, half the short block wide and three hundred feet back. They've already seen, coming around from side street onto New York Avenue NW, a gated parking lot granting admittance to the recessed Rectory.

On the large blue over white sign beside the ornately carved mahogany doors is printed the inviting words 'The Episcopal Church Welcomes You' alongside the familiar white, red and blue shield emblem. There are printed below this welcome the names of two Priests, which DiNozzo dutifully notes in his PDA. There are an impressive number of Services, both weekend and weekday.

"They certainly are busy," Ziva observes.

"Ya think? My old Parish in Baltimore locks up tight as a drum by 1:00 Sunday afternoon and that's it." DiNozzo's slightly jealous to find the Church doesn't have iron bars for a fence.

x

The interior is as impressive as its outside; the vaulted stone ceiling is supported by ornately carved pillars and the entire effect is one of Gothic elegance and massive solidity. The five high and brightly lighted stained-glass windows on each side are beautiful works of art. The sunlight streams through the left windows to paint the oaken pews, and in DiNozzo's judgment it's fully two hundred feet from Narthex to the brightly illuminated Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary, with its green draped Altar, extends from one side of the Church to the other, forty feet wide and at least twenty deep. It's set upon a single step upraised platform, open and accessible rather than blocked by an Altar rail. Carved pairs of wooden doors beyond either side of the Altar have tall wooden statues mounted upon them. The banners the haloed men hold are too far away to read but DiNozzo has his suspicious about what they say.

The Altar and the lectern on the left are draped in elegant matching gold highlighted green. The lectern on the right is a massive golden eagle standing atop a golden globe; its wings extend to support a huge red book.

A door to their left leads to another Avenue side entrance, perhaps newer than the tremendous red doors they passed through.

The immense stone structure, mostly carved marble, is also a good ten degrees cooler than the August air outside.

x

As they look about, Ziva appreciates the spacious setting as much as the merciful coolness. Though this isn't her religion, she has deep respect for the worship of God in whatever forms it might take. Tim seems to take the impressive site in stride while Tony's attention is immediately locked on the two women conversing beside a pair of doors halfway up the right side aisle.

In particular, he's clearly intrigued by the woman whose back is to them. The one facing them, who Ziva presumes to be the cleaning woman from her attire and the cloth in her hand, is approaching her fifties and, while she is not unattractive, it is the woman she is conversing with that holds her partner's gaze. Tony walks to the right corner of the Narthex and to the right aisle, the better to see the pair, obliging herself and Tim to follow.

The woman whose back is to them wears a black skirt that falls below her knees, yet her legs are still eye-catching so Ziva doesn't fully blame Tony - yet. She's confident, however, that he will do something blameworthy very soon now. The woman halfway up the two hundred foot side aisle wears a light blue blouse buttoned up the back, the material catches the light and seems to shine it back into the room. Her long red hair curls about her shoulders.

"Tony?" Tim tries to bring DiNozzo, if not back to business, at least back to the planet.

"What is it, Probie?" he asks, his eyes petting the woman's body. Ziva suspects he's wishing she would turn about so he could caress her front.

She has had enough. "Tony, we are in a _Church_."

"If this is an example of what I'm missing, I should come more often."

She tries to swallow back a sigh, amazed at his gall. "Even _you_ cannot be so crass as to try to pick up a woman in a Church."

"_Hey_, this is an Investigation," he reminds them officiously, though apparently barely paying attention. "I just want to see if she knows anything."

"I'm not sure she's your type," Tim says. Ziva gives Tim a look to say there is no way to counsel or change the man.

"Hey, I'm not going to be 'inappropriate'. Of course," he she's sure that he never considered _not_ taking advantage of the situation, "if in the course of our Investigation I should happen to need her phone number for follow-up–"

"Tony, trust me," Tim says, "you do _not _need her phone number."

Tony ignores his friends while Tim and Ziva exchange glances of frustration and disgust.

x

"Excuse me, ladies," DiNozzo begins in his most suave voice. The cleaning woman ('Sexton, are they called?' he thinks) looks at him curiously and the object of his attention turns, a bright smile upon her face. She makes clear that she's happy to see him even before seeing him.

"Good evening," she greets him warmly, her words couched in an interesting, melodious accent he can barely trace from only two words.

He looks her over in, for him, a discreet check. He can't give her body the full visual stroking he would have if she weren't directly in front of him, but what he sees drops the smile from his lips.

He barely notices the way her gold glasses catch the pinpoints of the many surrounding lights within the frame of her red hair. His eyes only get down as far as the top of her royal blue 'back button' shirt, to the inch and a quarter high, stiff white band that encircles her throat.

x

Tony's flustered and desperate not to show it. "I'm Sp - Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS." He pulls out and opens his ID case, displaying his identification cards and shield. In that instant, his eyes flutter across her breasts and he's even more flustered to see she's definitely his 'type' and he's suddenly sorry for it.

Anxious to cover, he pulls out his PDA and turns it on, tremendously grateful he'd taken down the names of the Ministers listed outside.

The sign had only one name upon it that wasn't clearly a man's. "I take it you're Reverend ..." he struggles over the name, "Si - o - ba - han?" He's cringing at the end, but the woman just smiles.

"Not bad. Actually, it rhymes with 'Yvonne'. Siobhan O'Mallory at your service," she extends her hand; DiNozzo is surprised by the firmness of her grip.

"You're Irish, aren't you?" he asks, trying to cover his fluster.

O'Mallory grins. "How can you tell?"

x

DiNozzo indicates his fellows, grateful to have recovered his aplomb. "Officer Ziva David and Special Agent–"

"Timmy," O'Mallory greets him warmly, reaching out. McGee would shake her hand but she hugs him instead, kisses his cheek. To DiNozzo that kiss seems to linger an extra second.

"Shav - Siobhan - Mother O'Mallory–"

She looks up at him, she's about three inches under his six one height. "I take it you haven't brought your friends because you wanted to visit me?"

"Err, no, that is I - I'm here on - that is, we're here on business."

"Oh. Well then," she says in her melodious brogue, "if we're not going to dance, shouldn't you let me go?"

He steps back quickly. Seeing Tony's consternation, he recovers enough to give his partner a look in return that says: 'I tried to warn you'.

Ziva does not begrudge Tim that affectionate kiss and lingering embrace. She's having too much fun watching her distressed partner being 'one-uped' by the 'Probie' - again.

She has noted that the Sexton, well aware that she is not the subject of the visitors attention, has drifted away to resume her duties. She doubts either of her partners have noted the woman's disappearance.

x

DiNozzo had quickly perceived the very obvious, that the woman priest is Irish. Tim McGee knows her to be very Irish. Born in Ireland and immigrated at the age of seven to settle in Bethesda, Maryland, she'd immersed herself in Irish lore, retaining speech that was distinctly ethnic. As a girl it had been a way of protesting the pressure to assimilate American culture; the more she was compelled to 'fit in', the harder she'd fought until, over the years, an affectation had become her normal manner.

x

"So these are your 'Enkiss' teammates," Siobhan says while shaking hands with Ziva.

"Yes they are," McGee recovers his voice if not his poise.

"McGee never told us he knows such a lovely Priestess," DiNozzo says to her, trying to be suave while giving a verbal dig to Tim, at the same time never noticing his faux pas. "And 'enkiss', I've never heard it put so attractively as in your lovely accent."

"Thank you," she says, "but really, you're the one with the accent." Her sweet smile completely undermines his 'recovery'.

Rev. George Donaldson had once told her that she had a brogue that could be cut with a knife, fueled by a stubbornness that could not, but he'd said it with love.

"So, how may I serve you?"

x

Any other woman, handing Tony DiNozzo such a straight line, takes a real risk - but this time his only reaction is a choked silence, allowing Tim to cut in smoothly. "Unfortunately, Siobhan, this isn't a social call," he says with a measure of regret, even while admiring her technique in employing such an unsettling line.

He knows she'd recognized DiNozzo's manner in the first instants of seeing him. His voice before she'd turned had telegraphed his thoughts and he can see she revels in DiNozzo's flustered reaction.

Tim knows she has had long practice, long before becoming a Priest, in taking a person down a peg when they need it. He'd have warned DiNozzo if the man had paid attention to him.

"Is there someplace private we can go?"

"Why Timmy," she favors him with a teasing smile, "are you being naughty?"

If anything, his disconcertion is far more pronounced than DiNozzo's had been. He'd forgotten that, when the mood strikes her, her humor can be quite devastating - and she can change targets faster than Gibbs.

x

Ziva David enjoys the moment immensely. In less than a minute the woman has torpedoed two NCIS Agents below the waterline and has done it with a truly friendly manner.

She considers stepping in to try to help her lover but decides against it. She does not want to try her luck.

x

"Much as I would love to be '_naughty'_ with you, Shav– Siobhan," Tim replies, _almost_recovering enough to try to turn the tables, "this isn't the time."

He sees Tony and Ziva staring at him so intently he can almost read their minds. There's disconcerted jealousy in Tony's eyes that 'the Probie' is making so fine a show with a stunning woman forever beyond the self-styled Lothario's reach, while he sees Zee struggling to understand how he can imagine being 'naughty' with a Priest.

He considers enlightening them but changes his mind. "I'm sorry, but we _are _here on business."

"Of course, I _am _sorry," she tells the others before they can develop the wrong idea, "but Timmy is an old friend - and if you can't flummox your friends who can you flummox?"

"Words to live by," Tony says, wondering how old and how good friends they are. He resolves to get the answer.

Tim, seeing a familiar look in his partner's eyes, resolves that he will not.

x

Siobhan's frequent manner of trying to put new guests 'at ease' by breaking - just a little - the artificial wall most people feel between the Clergy and the Laity can sometimes, Tim notes, have some interesting consequences. But he wouldn't trade her easy-going manner for all the stuffiness and aloofness some of her Colleagues might fall into the trap of – _especially_ when it can so effectively derail Anthony DiNozzo.

Before anyone can move, however, Gibbs is among them. None of the Agents saw him arrive, he's just there with the preternatural stealth that makes him both legendary and feared. O'Mallory, having seen him coming out of the Narthex's side door, is the only one not surprised by Gibbs' silent arrival. Further introductions are made, and she's particularly interested in the obvious regard in which he's held by his peers.

x

Gibbs, responding to the updated report of his team when they'd left Dumas' apartment, had entered the tremendous building through the left set of Avenue doors which provide access to a corridor with the Church on his right, a Hall to his left and before him a rightward ascending staircase to the Choir loft over the Narthex. Both these inner entrances are doubtlessly intended to provide more discrete access to the Church during Services. It allowed him to observe for a few moments the interplay between his agents and the flame haired woman before making his presence known.

Gibbs finds the woman instantly impressive in her own right, but he's certainly going to temper the attraction he has for any redhead with appropriate maturity and discretion he's confident DiNozzo hasn't shown.

x

The Agents follow the woman back to the Narthex and to the right side door, across the foyer which grants access to the Avenue and then into the Hall which stretches out to their right.

They note that this very long hall matches the length of the Church, some two hundred feet. There are fifty round tables seating ten, a kitchen to their left and the flags of a multitude of nations hang in salute from the rafters of the arched wooden ceiling.

Through the windows on the right they see between the church and this hall a large and wide garden, within which are several trees and benches. A stone fountain sprays a smooth bowl of water upward to fall back as a curtain into the wide bowl at the base.

Ziva, taking in everything, notes DiNozzo's eyes, sees what _they _are taking in and silently jabs her elbow into his ribs.

x

In going through to the far end and turning right again, they come to a hallway. Traversing this final corridor, there's an office on the right which looks out into the garden, while on the left is a deep room containing a prodigious number and variety of Liturgical vestments in colors which span the spectrum. The second right and left doors of three are an office to the left and to the right a sign marked 'Vesting'. There's a bathroom marked as the last left door while the last right is marked 'Sacristy'. They realize this door is to the congregation's right and that inner doors mounted with the wooden statues would give admittance to the right side of the Sanctuary as seen from the pews.

They particularly note that each door, with the exception of the bathroom, is inset with a foot square diamond shaped window.

There's a final door facing them at the end of the hall, this one marked 'Rectory', which leads into the house they had noted upon pulling up the side street. Turning at the second of the three doors on the left, they enter the office.

A Priest is seated at the right of two desks in the wood paneled room. This desk faces to their left and the other desk faces them by the far wall.

The man, this one in a black shirt with white tab collar rather than O'Mallory's wraparound band and light blue shirt, is watching a small television set displaying a Rangers game on the corner of his desk. He turns it off as the unexpected visitors enter.

"Father Donaldson, these are Special Agents Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee and Officer David, NCIS."

x

Donaldson, a tall man with a shock of jet black hair, had risen at the entrance of these visitors and extends his hand first to Gibbs. "NCIS, huh? In that case, former Gunnery Sergeant George Donaldson at your service."

"Gunny; good to meet you," Gibbs says, shaking hands with the man, pleased to have a more comfortable common ground on which to deal with him. "You're in charge here?"

"I'm the Rector, Mother O'Mallory is Curate." He greets each of the others in turn.

"Sorry, I'm not familiar with that term," Gibbs admits.

"It's an ancient term, just like all of ours," he tells them casually. "Basically, it means I get to tell her what to do."

"I love a man with a rich fantasy life," O'Mallory says, exchanging a comradely wink with Ziva.

Ziva finds herself warming to the woman, despite her obvious yet unstated history with her partner.

x

"But that's all just technical stuff for the Diocese and the Vestry," Donaldson tells them, continuing the casual tone. "Fact is, we're a team; you can't run a Church with a congregation of over nine hundred by getting bogged down. Would you care for some coffee?" He indicates with a gesture the small white coffee pot on a table near the bookcase; Gibbs and Tony accept.

They're all taken by the casual air the man projects within his sanctuary. It's an uncommon ease, considering the formality in which they're usually received by the clergy and the stress shown by the military.

"Now," the man asks when they've been served, "what can simple Parish Priests such as we do for the illustrious NCIS?"

Gibbs returns Donaldson's smile; from what he's seen there's little of 'simple' here, but he finds himself liking this pair. He's known many priests in his time and so few are as 'down to earth' or able to easily express a joie de vivre, especially with strangers. Unfortunately, he fears he has to dampen that.

"We're investigating someone who might have a connection with your Church. Do either of you know a Marine 2nd Lieutenant Christina Dumas?"

"Tina? Of _course _we know her," O'Mallory assures them, surprise clear in her voice. "She's served here for years; I think she was born to this Church." Donaldson nods in confirmation.

"How has she 'served' here?" Gibbs asks her. There had been nothing in the Lieutenant's Service Record of a Chaplaincy, nor of any Religious Orders.

"Acolyte, Eucharistic Minister, Lector; she's a member of the St. Fiacre Society, which means she helps tend our garden. She was recently licensed as a Eucharistic Visitor."

"'EM', 'L' and 'EV'," Tim reminds his fellows, referring to the initials found in Dumas' electronic calendar.

"What does all that mean?" Gibbs asks. He'd known many of the terms, understood a few of them, but he prefers to get the obscure defined immediately. Considering the eclectic nature of his team, this is always a good idea.

"A Eucharistic Minister," O'Mallory explains, "assists during the Mass in administering the Elements: the Bread and the Wine. We sometimes have large crowds and can use the help. A Eucharistic Visitor brings the consecrated Elements to shut-ins and the hospitalized after the Mass. A Lector does the readings during the Liturgy of the Word and Acolytes assist in various duties in the Liturgy of the Sacrament. We generally use four to six Assistants at Sunday Services, and as many as are available on weekdays, from a staff of nine."

x

"Is something wrong?" Donaldson asks, the tone changing. "Has something happened to Tina?"

"Is it her heart?" O'Mallory asks with deeper apprehension.

"What about her heart?" Gibbs anticipates confirmation of Ducky's findings.

"She has a heart condition that's plagued her for the past couple of years. She's had two operations; her doctor hasn't been able to cure her. I _told_ her she should go see someone else, but–" Donaldson waves her to silence.

"What happened?" he asks bluntly.

"We have a picture to show you. I'm sorry, we need to have positive identification that it is Christina Dumas we're talking about."

"Of course." He accedes to the necessity even though he wishes for straight answers. He knows he won't get them until the Agents are positive they're all taking about the same person.

Tony reaches into his jacket, taking hold of the picture, a head and shoulders shot taken upon Ducky's table after the streaks of blood had been cleaned from her face. "I'm sorry; this will be disturbing," he cautions, but Ziva stops him.

"Put the picture away, Tony."

"Why?"

Ziva points behind them. "Because that is a better one."

x

They turn to find a large portrait hanging on the wood paneled wall next to the door. The photograph is two feet high by two and a half wide and depicts a man flanked by two women. The man is in his late twenties, tall with short blond hair and black framed glasses. On the left is a black woman, they estimate her age to be about the same as the man's, her black hair a riotous crown of curls. The woman on the right, younger than when they'd last seen her lying upon Ducky's table, smiles out of this picture, her long blonde hair styled angelically.

All three wear formal white cinched Albs such as Priests wear, yet without the distinctive white collars of that rank.

"That's Tina on the right, with Melanie Velez and Bob Hastings," Father Donaldson says with carefully restrained but mounting concern. "That picture's over four years old, after Tina's reception of her License. Bob and Melanie have been Eucharistic Ministers longer, but she's our only Visitor. Now please _tell_ us."

'There's no way to soften this,' Gibbs thinks. "She was found this morning in Coleman Park. She was murdered."

"Murdered…" Father Donaldson is shaken, Mother O'Mallory more so. Each makes the Sign of the Cross, silently imploring.

Gibbs hates this part of the job. Unfortunately, it's too common. "She was found behind some bushes. She'd been whipped, _scourged _thirty-nine times and we believe that a crown of thorns had been forced onto her head."

x

Siobhan O'Mallory goes white as she clutches her chest, gasping. The Agents fear she's having, or about to have, a heart attack herself. DiNozzo, closest to her, takes her arms and eases her into a chair.

Donaldson gives her a few moments to catch her breath. He'd been shaken by the news, though he'd been partially prepared by the awareness that NCIS would not be here investigating a Marine Officer for the equivalent of parking tickets. "Are you all right, Siobhan?"

She pulls off her glasses, rubs her eyes, tries to keep back the tears. "_No_," she gasps, her breath fragmented as she tries very hard to compose herself, or at least to restrain herself from breaking. "He - he said - she looked good - with the crown–" She forcibly stops herself, distressed to realize she'd been about to relate words spoken in the Confessional.

But it's too late.

x

"He said what?" Gibbs asks.

"I - I can't say. I - I'm not sure. I could be wrong. I–" She looks up to Donaldson, returns her glasses, naked imploring in her green eyes.

"Siobhan, what aren't you saying?"

"I don't know." Her breath shudders. "I can't."

"Reverend O'Mallory - Siobhan," McGee urges, his tone gentle but compelling, "if you know something about this, you must tell us."

She continues to stare at her partner. "I might be wrong. It might be a coincidence. I was told in–"

"Reverend O'Mallory," Gibbs cuts in forcefully, "what do you know?"

"Do you know if Tina was raped?" she implores him, praying he'll say 'no', praying the reference to a 'crown' is just a horrible coincidence.

"Yes she was."

"Oh God!" Siobhan gasps, her composure near to break. She forces herself _not_ to break.

"Mother O'Mallory, if you know something, tell us," Gibbs repeats, trying to drive through her distress.

"I can't." Her breath is driven to a grief-filled whisper, eyes locked downward. "I can't." She longs to speak, longs to tell them what she knows, unable to believe they're talking about Tina - that Tina's dead, that Tina had been– "I can't!"

"Siobhan–" Donaldson tries.

She looks up at him. "_I CAN'T_!"

In that soul-torn cry Donaldson understands, recalls what her duties were this morning.

"Seal?"

She nods miserably. "I was on duty this morning," she says sadly, reminding him of what he knows so well.

"My God," he breathes softly and then straightens, looks Gibbs square in the eyes. "I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs. She can't tell you."

x

"Why _not_?" he demands. He doesn't like anyone withholding evidence, but people who claim affection for a victim doing so instantly exhausts his patience.

"What she learned, whatever it was, was learned during a Confession. She can't speak of it."

"Well, you're her boss, _you _tell her."

He shakes his head. "It doesn't work that way."

"This confession, it took place in the Church?"

"The Confessional is midway to the Altar on the Epistle side."

Gibbs glances behind him. "DiNozzo, McGee."

"Prints and other forensics; on it, boss." They depart quickly.

"What are you doing?"

"Collecting evidence." He glares at O'Mallory, who seems to have recovered her composure. "Maybe you can't talk, we'll settle that later, but physical evidence has nothing to do with your 'vows'." His tone makes clear what he thinks of this evasion. As much respect as he has for the Church, there are limits and she's instantly passed them.

x

O'Mallory stands up, faces him directly. The color, and more, has returned to her face. His words, his tone coupled with her frustration and grief fire her. "There is nothing to 'settle'. I can't tell you anything."

Gibbs decides that if she won't talk here and now, he'll go to her Bishop or as high as he has to. "Perhaps you haven't understood. You're in shock at the loss of your friend–"

"Oh, I've understood perfectly."

"- so I'll spell it out for you. This is a _murder_ of a young woman you seem to know well. She was _raped_, whipped by a set of straps with jagged bits of metal on the ends that _tore _the flesh from her–"

"I _know _what a scourge is!" she exclaims hotly, battered by Gibbs' words.

"And then a crown of thorns was shoved onto her head and she was raped again and again until the weakened wall of her racing heart couldn't hold together any more and _exploded_ in her chest–"

"_That's enough_!" Donaldson demands as he steps between them. "Mother O'Mallory has already _told _you she can't speak about it. Whatever she knows, if anything, was learned under _Sacramental Seal_. Now if you don't know what that means, it means that absolutely no leeway exists that will allow or can compel her to speak. She can't even discuss it with the _Penitent_ and even if he talks she can't, so _drop it_!"

The two men are virtually nose-to-nose; the tension between them electrifies the air. Into that standoff DiNozzo returns.

He's about to make his report but the air is so thick he can't continue; not that he would dare to interrupt Gibbs at such a moment. A few seconds later, Gibbs turns to him.

"It's a communal booth," Tony says. "This could take some time."

x

Gibbs restrains himself from thinking thoughts very inappropriate to the setting. But when he turns back to Donaldson, knowing now the pair to be his best source of information, there's no fire in his manner and Donaldson tries to remove his own.

"We'll certainly help and cooperate in any way we can in catching whoever killed Tina," the priest assures them. "In anything that doesn't violate the Sanctity of the Confessional, you have our enthusiastic support."

O'Mallory steps around Donaldson. "Tina was my friend." Her voice shakes with emotion she won't release. "Though I care equally for all our flock, you can imagine the bond that forms between those like Tina, Melanie and I. We always said 'we Women of the Cloth have to stick together'."

"I understand," Gibbs tells her. "Is there anything you can tell us, any clue at all, that won't violate your vow? Voice, accent, anything?"

She considers carefully. "I'll think about it, consult my superiors - and I _will _get back to you, Agent Gibbs."

"Thank you. We'll be in touch." He feels he can afford to be conciliatory; the tension between them has faded and he has no desire to bring it back. There's time enough later for that. Right now he has to deal with these 'rules'.

x

"I'll give you my address," she tells Gibbs, stepping over to the desk that faces the entrance.

"You don't live in the Rectory?" DiNozzo asks, recalling the large building beside the church, watching the woman bend slightly to write out the information on a pad. She tears off the sheet and turns back just as McGee enters with the forensics box.

"No, I do," Donaldson answers.

"I have an apartment near here," she says, handing Gibbs the paper. "The Church covers the rent as part of my contract."

"The Rectory is big enough to fit two Priests comfortably and has done so many times in the past," Donaldson elaborates. "But unmarried male and female Priests sharing the same residence... well, you can see we must avoid any appearance of impropriety so, since I'm the Rector, I get the big house."

"There's just one more thing." DiNozzo says, dissatisfied with an inconsistency he believes he'd found. "I thought you people didn't put as much into Mary being a 'Virgin' as the Catholic Church does." He remembers Kate, she'd have a conniption over this.

"Very perceptive, Agent DiNozzo," Donaldson says with a complimenting smile, not going into at this time that they're catholic as well. "This is a very old church, as you've seen, and was originally Roman. But it's expensive to run and the demographics changed so much that the two Dioceses got together and arranged a sale over thirty five years ago."

"That's why you have 'Confessionals'? I thought they were phased out a long time ago."

"Exactly. They were," Donaldson confirms. He knows where the Agent's question will lead however, and doesn't try to avoid it. "The Church in the past two decades or so prefers face-to-face _Reconciliation_ in a special room, where the anonymity of the Penitent is no longer an issue. But we're an 'old' Parish; a significant percentage of our Parishioners are more traditional. We tried the Reconciliation Room, the protests we received made it hardly worth the effort. So we hold Confession daily from 10 to 11. We don't get many on any particular day, in which case it's a quiet hour used for reflection and mediation, but the service is offered five days a week prior to the Noon Mass."

"Any day when it's not used?"

"Not particularly. We can't predict a day when _no one_ will come."

"How many Parishes around here still use the booths?" Gibbs asks.

"Saint George's is the only other one with Special Dispensation, but our times will run out when our demographics change. There's a General Confession of Sin at every Mass and most people consider that sufficient. It's only the older, more traditional among us who refuse to change."

"The fact that we run a Senior Nutrition Program," O'Mallory says, "which serves 500 meals a day in our Hall helps keep things as they are."

"So in any other Parish in the city besides you and Saint George's," Gibbs concludes. "the perp would have to sit down at a table with you for private confession."

"Yes," she admits, but then her tone firms. "It still wouldn't change anything."

"It might well have."

"I don't see how."

Gibbs leaves it at that. He could answer her, but the answer could cause nothing but pain and bring them no closer to a solution. Christina Dumas was targeted in this church _because_ their booths allow anonymous confession.

x

"But now, Lady and Gentlemen," Donaldson says, "if there's nothing more, we ask that _you _retire for a time." Donaldson wants the conversation over. He hadn't missed Gibbs' point and it's something he does _not_ want to get into. "We have to contact Tina's family. The 12:00 Mass tomorrow will be said for the repose of her soul; you're welcome to attend. If you wish, we'll speak more after that."

"Until then, Father, Mother. Our condolences."

"Thank you. Good evening."

"Good evening."

xxx

Exiting the Church through the door between Hall and Church into the dimming New York Avenue NW, Gibbs and the team consider what they've seen and heard. "I'm surprised you didn't bring her in," DiNozzo observes.

"They're not going anywhere. We'll be back after twelve, they'll have some lawyer from the Diocese and we'll work it out."

"The Probie could probably get us what we need," DiNozzo suggests.

"Let it rest, Tony," McGee advises, knowing he can't get so lucky.

Gibbs fixes him with a piercing look. "You know something, McGee?"

"He must," DiNozzo's reveling in his friend's discomfort, "he _kissed_ her. Actually, _she_kissed _him_, and what a kiss."

Gibbs inspects the younger Agent with particular intensity. He'd also had an interest in the extremely attractive redhead before she'd become the principle witness in their case, but he'd certainly not kissedher. And he'd been concerned about DiNozzo; he decides he owes the Lothario an apology.

"I _asked_ you to let it rest," Tim grates, then turns to Gibbs. "It was just a little kiss. On the cheek." He stops, realizing how bad it sounds. "We're old friends."

"Old very _good _friends; and that was more than a _little_ kiss," Tony elaborates, enjoying every moment. The Probie had let him walk into an embarrassing situation and payback is a–

"Is this true, McGee?"

x

Tim looks about, not wanting to speak and wishing he had a vow of his own to fall back upon. Ziva's are the only supporting eyes and she's too curious. Finally, acceding to the inevitable, he admits: "We used to date, all right?"

Gibbs gets in closer. "Date, McGee?" He's enjoying this almost as much as DiNozzo is, though he keeps it off his face. Even Ziva, whom McGee had undoubtedly been counting upon, picks up her curiosity a notch.

"It was a long time ago," McGee admits and catches DiNozzo's eye. "She wasn't a Priest, all right?"

"Priestette?"

"High School Cheerleader in Bethesda, if you really must know." He doesn't like Tony's smirk. "_What_?"

"I'm just picturing _you _with a _cheerleader_. It doesn't fit."

"Well, things were different then." She hadn't been a cheerleader, she'd been Shav, and he'd known her since Freshman year.

"You must have been quite the heartbreaker, Probie. You dump her and she takes Holy Orders?"

"All right, _enough_," Gibbs cuts in, seeing a flare of genuine anger in McGee's eyes, a rare thing. "McGee, talk to her tomorrow. But this evening do your web thingy, find the loophole in this 'sacramental seal' thing."

"There's no loophole, boss," Tim assures him. That much he is sure of. But Gibbs fixes him with an iron look. "Right, boss."

He'll try again later.

"DiNozzo, you and Ziva go back to Dumas' apartment, backtrack her life. I want to know who she met with, who she spoke to - hell, who she nodded at."

"On it, boss." He turns toward his car.

Before DiNozzo can take a step out of reach, Gibbs' hand comes up, slaps the back of his head. The younger man turns, surprised. "Keep your mind out of the gutter."

"Right, boss."

"Meantime," he finishes as he heads for his car, leaving McGee and Ziva to the third vehicle, "I'll see what Ducky and Abby have turned up."

xx

George Donaldson watches Siobhan at her desk through the corner of his eye. She's shrouded in silence, a solitary moment he won't break. He's focused on his own prayers. Several minutes ago she'd crossed the room, pulled a red bound copy of the 'Book of Common Prayer' off the shelf, evidently needing it to order her thoughts. He's learned to read her well enough in the past two years.

She's immersed herself in the volume in utter silence and the air grows heavier between them as the soundless minutes pass. Finally, after twenty minutes, he speaks softly. "Do you want to talk?" She shakes her head. "It'll make you–"

"Feel better?" she cuts into his thought. After another long silence, she looks up at him. "You too." She sighs sadly.

He can see denied tears hover at the edges of her eyes, but her voice carries misery that can't be expressed in words.

"For the first time I can remember," she says, "I'm handed a reality I don't _want _to believe in. That she's gone - that she's _dead _- is bad enough. But to know I had her - her _murderer_ - inches away from me and that I _forgave _him–"

She can find no words and a moment later puts her head down. It's become too much of a sad burden to keep it up. "What am I going to say to her parents?"

He's not sure whom she's imploring. "I'll make the call."

"No, George, I'll do it." She sits back up and reaches for the phone, but stops, her hand upon the receiver. "I can't," she admits after a long moment. "I will, but not right this minute."

"Go home." She looks at him, surprised. "That's an order."

"You know you can't give me orders." Her denial comes out as a sigh, knowing it's not so. But this time she's intentionally scrambled 'can't' for 'won't'.

"Loving advice from a friend then. You're shot. You need some time to yourself, to deal with this. Go home, make some dinner,"

"I'm too sick to eat."

"and I'll see you in the morning."

x

Heart aching, she knows her friend is right. Guilty as she feels for leaving him to deal with the notifications - especially the worst one - she stands up gratefully, struggles to keep her emotions behind a placid mask that can fool no one, least of all him. "Thank you."

"Sleep." He won't wish her a 'good night'; neither of them is going to have one. She starts for the door, grateful to get out, to be alone, but she can only get as far as putting her hand on the knob.

"I'll still call Harry and Emma."

"I know you will."

xx

Exiting through the dark Sacristy across the hall, she enters the dim Church to the congregation's right of the Altar. Knowing that Ann Parcella has turned off all the lights and locked up when she left, she steps in front of the holy table. The huge church is cool from the vast amount of carved marble, and dark with the already set sun. It won't be true summer dark for a while, but the colored glass of each of the ten windows, five to a side, is deep grey, lifeless. Only a small spotlight illuminates the tabernacle on the platform beyond the Altar, that will go off at midnight and the gold double of the church barely reflects enough light to see by. She genuflects to the tabernacle, within which is the consecrated Eucharist, the body of Christ. Rather than a smooth motion, she remains on her right knee for a long time, imploring help and solace, this time finding neither.

She stands up, turns to the dark Church, her mind's eye filling in detail she can't see with her human orbs, even though they're adjusting to take in the dimmest light. The normally vibrant colors of the ten stained windows are indiscernible, dead. She takes off her glasses momentarily and cleans them on a handkerchief from her skirt pocket; the church instantly becomes a dark grey fog - the blackness of death. She restores the glasses quickly, not wanting to see this.

x

Stepping out of the Sanctuary, she moves aside and then restores the red and yellow cords from the end of the first pew across the center aisle to the opposite pew, reforming the symbolic barrier.

In that moment grief, so strongly contained, slams her and she tries again to force it back. She can't. She doesn't _want_ to cry. To so many people she's said that one should not grieve for the dead, that for those who have had a fulfilled life one should _celebrate _their return home to Heaven, that only a wasted life is to be mourned. But this belief doesn't ease her pain.

Tina had had a full and vital life, not a wasted one and Siobhan tells herself she should rejoice in her friend's return Home, but she can't. She'd _tried_; for half an hour she'd tried, but the pain persists, grows worse; and worst of all for her are the memories.

She tries to restrain the grief welling up in her, but the gate, once the first crack appears, can't be closed. She fights back the tears and they batter harder at her.

Sinking to her knees into the pew beside her, she can't halt the montage of images that assail her. Every joyful memory comes with its painful stab of misery. The sad ones are even more poignant, the sharp pain stabs until she can't stand it any longer. She tries to force tears back, prays for control, for strength, for understanding of God's Will - but she feels only the sting of tears.

Pulling off her glasses and hiding her face, she can fight no longer as misery, held back for so long, overwhelms her.

"_Oh __God_!" Tears rip through her.

In all her efforts to keep control, to be strong when others are about, she misses her friend. Now, alone, she has no more strength.

Kneeling in the dark Church, face hidden from the world, tears become sobs and sobs become a torrent of grief. She can't stop, can't control anything. She kneels in the darkness, weeping, unable even to divert her mind to prayers for her friend.

She never hears the Sacristy door open.

x

George Donaldson, making his final check of the Church, hesitates, surprised to find Siobhan, her broken sobs echoing in the huge Church. He's about to go to her, to offer what comfort he can, when he realizes she'd only be more humiliated to be caught in this moment of 'weakness'.

He closes the door quietly. Tomorrow he'll talk to her, when she won't be ashamed.

x

Siobhan tries to stop crying, but she can't fight anymore. Great wracking sobs tear at her as the darkness and quiet enfold her grief.

She doesn't know how long she cries, only that it's forever.


	5. Signs

Chapter Five  
Signs

When Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David arrive back at Tina Dumas' apartment and use the duplicate key obtained earlier from the Super, they duck under the crisscrossed yellow 'Crime Scene' tape and inspect the living room, take in the visible life of a Marine Lieutenant and Minister.

It is, on first glance, an orderly life, and the contents of the rooms paint a picture of the woman. Framed photos on the walls depict family and friends, as well as several Commendations the agents had noted earlier. There is one picture taken in a park, possibly during a picnic, and it displays familiar faces, three the Agents know, the remaining two from the picture in the Rector's office. Formal Liturgical attire are replaced by tee shirts and shorts, disheveled hair and unreserved grins

Tony takes the living room and kitchenette while Ziva begins an examination of the bedroom. It's against procedure to split up but they're tired and hope to finish before true night. Ziva knows that here in the bedroom she will find much more personal and revealing items, and when she opens a night table drawer beside the single bed she finds several that are _very _personal, and it is such items that she wishes to keep from the sometimes - no, _often_ - inappropriate observations of the Senior Field Agent.

They're attempting to reconstruct the life and activities of Lieutenant Christina Dumas, in the hope they can determine if she had known her killer.

In that regard, Dumas' frequently deleted Calendar records contained in the small grey 'Cassiopeia' are useless; though McGee will download her numerous Contact listings.

The computer on the coffee table in the living room promises to be a richer resource. It, at least, is free from a 4MB limit.

x

After conducting a thorough search, the pair meets in the bedroom to compare notes. "She does not have anything on her computer that I can see that ties in with her death," Ziva tells her partner, "but Tim can do a much more thorough analysis. There are a few password protected files, but the names are unambiguous. He may even be able to recover files from that other thing. Her clothes are very average, a lot of uniforms and military issue, a lot of clothes one would be comfortable wearing in Church." They'd already determined this, yet the more thorough search revealed no surprises.

"Her papers out there," DiNozzo says, referring to his search of her living room and kitchen, "are for the public; nothing scandalous in the least. The magazine subscriptions are bland; no 'Playgirl' or anything of the kind."

"Are you thinking what I am thinking?"

"That our Lieutenant Dumas is a woman who was very much aware she was in the public eye - Marine Recruiter by day, Church Lady by night and weekend. I'd love to get a look at her private files."

"I am sure you would," Ziva smirks. "That is why Tim will do it."

x

"Well, you should see her kitchen. There are more Health Foods in it than you'd find at most 'Hippy' communes."

"I was not aware your country still has hippies; communal or otherwise."

"We don't; they all died out eating that stuff."

"Well, did she do all her shopping in one place?"

"Doesn't look like it. I found receipts for three different Health Food shops. She keeps a basket of receipts on a tray table; all assortments, nothing more than a week old."

"She might save them for entering into her computer. I noticed she uses 'Quicken'. I do the same myself; input everything all at once and then throw away what I do not need."

"We should gather everything up," he says, referring to the contents of her cupboard. "Maybe Abby can make something of it."

"Like a Health Food salad?" Ziva quips, enjoying seeing him shudder.

xxx

"Jimmy, I love you but I _can't_! Why are you making me _do_ this?" Michelle pleads, trying to get him to understand how frightened he's making her. Of all the things he's ever asked her to do…. "I don't want to."

"'Chelle, really, this is something you need to do if we're really going to be together."

Looking at him, she cringes. To stay together with him she has to– "Do I _have_ to?"

"Look, we're closer than I've ever been with anyone, but I do want you to–."

"It turns my stomach!"

"'Chelle."

"It _does_. I'm scared, Jimmy. _Please_ don't make me." She looks around the sterile Autopsy room as though for someplace to hide. They're alone and she's trapped. The door is on the other side of him, Doctor Mallard is gone on a break and they're alone; conditions she has always relished but now she only wants to run away from him. "Please, Jimmy, you're _scaring _me," she begs plaintively, "_please _don't make me do this."

"'Chelle, there is nothing to be afraid of. It'll all be over quickly, it won't hurt a bit."

She shakes her head, cringing. "Yes it _will_!" She wants to back away - to run away - but there is no place to run. "We've known each other for over a year, why do you want to do this _now_?"

"Because its time you learned." He tries to keep his patience with her, to be understanding, but it's getting harder.

"When we started making love it was - I thought - with the understanding that _you_ would be sticking _me_!"

x

Jimmy puts the hypodermic down on the tray, tries again to be understanding and patient with her fear. He remembers the first time he had to do this; he hadn't enjoyed it one bit but it had to be done. "Honey, you know I'm diabetic, I need insulin, but the day may come - hopefully it won't - when I might not be able to give myself the injection and it will be up to you to know what to do. There's nothing to be afraid of, I've done this hundreds of times."

"_You're_ the one studying to be a Doctor. You know how to use these... Things. I don't."

"That's why I'm teaching you."

"But I don't want to _hurt_ you! Why's it have to be such a _big_ needle?"

He tries to restrain a smile. "It's a regular needle. You had no problem filling it."

"Yes I did. I just pretended."

"Well, you did it fine."

"I don't like sharp objects."

"Since when?"

"Since Officer David tried to teach me to use a throwing knife and I almost turned Special Agent Gibbs into a Gibbs-ka-bob!"

Sometimes it's so hard to keep a serious expression with her, but he manages it. "'Chelle, listen–"

"Why do I have to do it? Can't you just - keep doing it yourself?"

"Because the day _may_ come, while we're together, when I'm disassociated or unconscious, and I depend on you."

"I'd only hurt you."

"You won't hurt me."

"But–"

He reaches out, takes her arms. "'Chelle, I have perfect love for you, and that means perfect trust. You will _not _hurt me."

"But–"

"'Chelle, I'd really like to finish this before Doctor Mallard comes back from his break."

She looks back and forth between his bare arm and the tray with the inch wide rubber strap, the medicated wipes and the detestable syringe.

x

Swallowing hard, trying to find her courage - _somewhere_ - she picks up the long strap.

"Good, now wrap it right here, use a slip knot. Pull it taut - and now just loop the knot about two inches above my arm, that will provide just the right amount of pressure. Now let it go. Not so _hard_."

"Sorry!" she cringes.

"It's all right. It's all right. Now, wipe right here with the disinfectant wipe."

"That I can do," she sounds relieved - for the moment.

"Now, pick up the syringe in your right hand. You can see the blood starting to constrict just like it's supposed to. With your left finger tap the vein right here a few times lightly; that'll accentuate it. Very good."

"I just know I'm going to screw this up," she mutters.

"You won't screw it up. The first time's always the worst, but you'll see how easy it is. After this, you're going to want to be sticking me all the time."

"No _way_. When we're married, you're going on a totally sugar free diet."

He smiles indulgently. "It doesn't work that way."

"Okay," she breathes deeply, over and over. "I'm good, I'm good. I'm _hyperventilating_ but I'm good."

"'Chelle."

"What?" She asks, stopping her deep breathing.

"The needle?"

"All right." She reaches out to him. "It's just that I hate the sight of blood."

"There won't be any blood," he assures her, "not if you do it right."

She pulls away, retreating, drops the syringe back onto the tray. "Oh, great, why'd you have to tell me that? Now I _will_ hurt–"

"'Chelle, you will not hurt me and there won't _be_ any blood, I promise you."

"How can you say that?" she demands, trying to keep her tone below panic pitch.

"Because my arm's going numb. This thing's only supposed to be on for a minute."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I expected we'd be done by now."

"I'm hopeless."

"You are not hopeless, honey," he speaks with greater force, tries to break through her fear, "but I want you to pick up that syringe _now _and follow my instructions." She obeys without protest, handling the syringe like a loathsome piece of decayed flesh. "Just pull off the top. Now honey, just put the point of the needle right over here, on the vein. Lower the angle a little. You'll be going in along the path of the vein, in the direction of the blood."

x

She cringes, every muscle tense as she obeys his instructions, her only sound a soft mewl of fear.

"Honey, relax, you'll do fine. It's not a big deal."

"Says you."

"It's my arm. Now, there won't be any blood, the needle itself will keep any from flowing, and you'll be pumping in, not drawing out."

"How deep do I have to go?" she cringes.

"Not deep at all, it's right there. You'll be pushing gently through the flesh, a smooth easy motion, just stop when you feel it pop the vein."

"Oh _God_." She pulls away. "I can't do this! Why'd you have to tell me _that_?"

"Michelle, listen to me," he tells her firmly, using her full name for the first time in weeks, "you can do this. Now. There is _nothing_ to be afraid of. Come back." She does so slowly, cringing inwardly and outwardly. "Relax. Please. It's better if you're not tense. Take a deep breath. _One_ deep breath," he amends quickly.

"Now, relax. Put the needle against the skin, just as you had it before. Breathe normally. Normally. Now, in one smooth, easy motion push the syringe in until you feel the resistance disappear, stop and smoothly, _slowly_, push the plunger. You can do it."

She takes a sharp, deep breath, holds it and lets it out slowly, trembling. She doesn't hear the doors slide open and closed as she starts to follow his directions.

Ducky, seeing the pair huddled by one of the examination tables, steps up behind them. "What are you doing?"

"YYEEEEOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!"

xxx

A blast of noise from Abby's radio assaults Gibbs the instant the elevator doors open, long before he braves the partition of her sanctum. When those glass doors part, he's battered by sound so loud it can barely be discerned as music. To him it's even louder than this morning's blasting noise. In the midst of this barrage of sound Abby sits calmly at her workstation, peering into her microscope. "ABBY!" He calls loudly, gives up immediately. He can't even hear himself.

He doesn't go to the offending device, not again, but decides this time she needs a more immediate lesson. Stepping up behind the white coated woman, he taps her firmly upon her shoulder.

If she screams as she jerks sharply upright he never hears it. She turns to him, eyes wide in astonishment. Her lips move impotently. He doesn't even consider shouting, raising his hands to her in a complex series of emphatic gestures.

/Turn that noise off!/

/Aw, Gibbs/ she signs back, grinning /you have no appreciation for music./

/You play me some music on that thing and I'll appreciate it./

She turns, crosses the room with an undisguised smirk and turns the volume down, leaving it at a sane level far more conducive to verbal conversation. "Happy?"

"Until I came in, yes." He rubs his ears. "Abby, you're going to ruin your hearing with that racket."

"What?" She raises her hands to stop him, then pulls two white plugs out of her ears. "Sorry, I forgot. What did you say?"

x

Gibbs considers he could pursue this to its illogical conclusion or he could discuss business. Given this not-unusual choice when dealing with the eclectic individuals under his command, he makes the only worthwhile one. "What do you have from our victim?"

"Quite a bit," she assures him, revving up to 45 with a 33 rpm record. "From under her nails I found fibers, I'm checking them now." She indicates the microscope she had been peering into. "They're nylon, rayon, moreon, I'll have an analysis for you shortly. There was some residue on her back and buttocks; that's also being analyzed. It's kind of a gritty mixture; I have to exclude the dirt taken from under her and identify what's left. It's still pretty early. give me until morning for all the tests to be done. I'll have better answers for you."

He knows she's just started, he can't demand miracles, no matter how badly he wants them. He looks at the clock, it is already after his 'quitting time', not hers, not that he allowed himself - or others - to break while there's a new case.

"Anything else, my silver haired Zorro?" She catches his look. "Fox. Zorro is Spanish for fox."

"I know that, Abby," he tells her dryly, knowing she's about to launch onto another tangent. He's almost afraid of what direction her always eclectic mind is about to take her.

"You know, you'd look good in a mask, with a sword and a _cape_," she tells him speculatively. "I can just see you carving your 'G' onto unsuspecting malefactors."

This is a direction he does _not_ want to pursue. "You have no idea," he warns her, "just where I'm tempted to carve my 'G'."

"I already have a _fantastic_ 'G-spot'," she assures him with a saucy wink.

Gibbs knows he can either pursue this into very dangerous waters or just walk away before things get completely out of control. He chooses the latter.

Abby's smile lingers as she returns to her microscope.

xxx

Gibbs strides into the Autopsy, feeling it to be a much 'safer' venue, catching Ducky just as he's putting on a light jacket. "Ah, Jethro; right on time, as it were. I was just closing up." Gibbs sees Palmer working at one of the three stainless steel tables, thoroughly scrubbing it. Christina Dumas rests quietly inside one of the refrigerated units that line the left wall.

He notices Palmer's left arm is wrapped in white gauze; he doesn't even want to know.

"What did you find, Ducky?"

"Very little more than I had reported earlier. The cause of death was a catastrophic rupture of her heart, brought on by overexertion, stress and not a small measure of sheer terror. Abby found extremely high levels of epinephrine in her bloodstream. She was tortured, sadistically and extensively, for quite some time before she was killed. But that's not the worst of it."

Gibbs wonders, given the horrors depicted so far in the man's report, what could be 'worse'. From Ducky's grim tones, he knows he's about to find out and that he won't like it. He asks for it anyway.

"She was a virgin."

"Are you sure?" A 26 year old virgin in the Corps? He can hardly credit it.

"Jethro, _really_."

"Sorry."

Ducky knows he could go into the details of his examination and what had led to the discovery that the destruction of her hymen had been recent, but he does not. 'Maybe I'm getting old,' he thinks, 'but the victims of these horrors we have to investigate seem to be getting younger every day.' Nonetheless, this time he leaves the conclusion to itself. It seems all the more terrible for its brevity.

"Come on, I'll walk you to your car." Gibbs can see the man has had a full and trying day; he can get the rest of what he needs on the way.

"Thank you, Jethro." He looks across the room at Jimmy, who is just putting the last of the cleaning supplies away. "Would you mind 'locking up' Mr. Palmer?"

"Not at all," he answers with a smile, "good night, Doctor, Agent Gibbs."

"Good night."

x

The glass doors slide together and a moment later the elevator doors open and close; and Palmer resumes his work. A minute later, he hears the glass doors open again and turns about.

Michelle Lee stands at the doors, on her face a look of naked desire tempered with darker concerns. He smiles reassuringly and she's vastly relieved. "I'm so sorry." From across the room she can still see the spot of blood that had seeped into the gauze even after the cleaning.

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm so _stupid_."

"You were startled. Tell you what, if you really feel bad, you can make it up to me."

As he takes a step toward her, she rushes to him. Her kiss is less lustful than usual, but far more loving.

They have planned to go to his place tonight. Later.

xxx

Chrissie Night puts her groceries down on the living room table when a heavy hand clamps a layer of plastic over her mouth. She's grabbed tightly about her chest. Screaming into the muffling hand, shocked and terrified, she tries to fight the strong body. She strains to breathe through the smothering plastic. She's forced face down to the floor, her body covered by his larger and heavier one. She can't believe he's doing this!

Frantic, she gasps desperately against the plastic for air that won't come. His heavy body holds her down on the floor. She'd screamed as the plastic covered her face and he'd grabbed her. Now she has no breath left. She struggles frantically against the strong hand, unable to draw a breath.

She strains harder to breathe, unable to escape his body on top of hers. He's much bigger than her five feet; he pins her to the floor like an insect. Her head starts to spin. She hears her blood from her racing heart pound in her ears and begins to cry. The world blurs, heady disassociation makes her dizzy as she strains as hard as she can to draw a breath.

She can't fight him.

She's dying.


	6. Last Rites

Chapter Six  
Last Rites

The next morning Jimmy Palmer drops Michelle Lee off in the underground garage next to her car - after a delay of several minutes. He walks up the ramp to the street level as Michelle gets on the elevator which will take her up to the Legal Department. He walks around the building, enters by the main door, slides his ID card through the reader and passes through the right turnstile. He's thus able to avoid the arch and x-ray scanner manned by the blue uniformed guard at the Security desk. The Guard halts him, however, as he turns toward the elevator.

"You know that lady?"

Jimmy follows the officer's pointed finger to a woman seated in the Waiting alcove at the right side. It's just forward of the already active corridor leading to various offices and the woman is seated on one of a half dozen chairs, reading a magazine. He can discern little about her except for long red hair and a light blue shirt. "No."

Tom Marchese checks the log-in sheet. "She says she's here to see Tina Dumas."

"Ah, that's one of Doctor Mallard's … guests. Thanks, Tom, I'll handle it."

Stepping up to the woman, greatly impressed by what he sees, he adopts his most suave, debonair manner. "Excuse me. I understand you're here about Lt. Dumas?"

She looks up from her magazine and the first thing he notices is how lovely she is, how her long red hair frames her face, how her emerald eyes take him in from behind her gold framed glasses, how the white collar encircling her throat catches the li–

White collar? _Ho boy_. "Er, I mean, that is, may…" he clears his throat and tries to hide, unsuccessfully, how disconcerted he is, "that is, may I halp–" he swallows very hard, "help you?"

"Yes, I hope so," she says in the loveliest Irish brogue he thinks he's ever heard. She stands up and he tries not to notice how attractive she is, how the light blue buttonless blouse she wears can't avoid discreetly hugging her, how her skirt just–. He wrenches his attention back to her face barely in time to hear her say: "I'm Siobhan O'Mallory of St. Mary the Virgin Church. I'm here to administer Last Rites to Miss Tina Dumas."

"Hi - I mean, hello. I'm Ji - Jimmy Palmer. I'm the Assistant Medical Examiner and I'd be happy to help you with that undertaking."

He clenches his eyes; tries to tell himself he did _not_ just say that.

x

Siobhan smiles politely, understanding the young man's disconcertion. As a woman priest, a person quite far from people's preconceptions, she gets this about once a week - unfortunately.

"I was waiting for a Doctor Mallard or Special Agent Gibbs?"

"They - they're probably in already." Jimmy says, trying to mask his nervousness with a glance at his watch; anything not to have to meet her emerald eyes. "Yes, they usually come directly in from the garage." Bad enough to have been 'coming on' to a _Priest_, but as a Roman Catholic he doesn't know _how_ to respond to a female Priest. 'What do I even call her?' he wonders, praying for inspiration before they come to a point in the conversation where he has to call her _something_.

"Ah; and you do not?"

"I had to drop my girlfriend off–" the distracted words are out of his mouth before he can bite them back. To his utter humiliation he realizes they've carried all the way to Tom at the Security Desk. "Can we come - I mean, can we _go_ - down to Autopsy?"

He wants to make it sound inviting, it comes out imploring. He just wants to get away from Tom before he gives away anything else.

'Then again,' he thinks, trying to bury his discomfort, 'how many ways are there to invite someone to Autopsy?'

"Lead on," the Priest says, picking up a small mahogany box that had been in the seat next to hers. Jimmy leads her to the elevator, trying not to see anyone else.

xx

Donald Mallard doesn't look up from the paper on his desk when he hears the doors to the Morgue slide open across the sterile white room behind him. "You're late," he admonishes his assistant, but it's not Palmer's voice that replies in lilting tones.

"I _am_ sorry, Doctor, I came as soon as Morning Prayer was over."

He turns around in his chair and sees Palmer standing next to a slightly smaller woman. Smaller than Jimmy, at least; he will still have to look up about three inches to her. "Not at all, Reverend O'Mallory," he says smoothly, standing up to greet her, noting her to be as tall as his friend Abby, though with red hair of a shade Gibbs would doubtlessly appreciate. "I anticipated your arrival. I trust you had no difficulty finding us?" He comes over and takes her hand.

"None; your Assistant was most helpful," she assures him, pleased that the older man is taking her unannounced arrival so well. She'd tried to phone, had left a message with the switchboard operator. "I'm sorry to intrude, but–"

"No intrusion, Mother, none at all. You are most welcome."

x

'Mother, _that's_ it!' Jimmy realizes, wanting to kick himself for missing the so-utterly-obvious. Once again, he wishes he had the older man's aplomb. 'Well, maybe when _I'm_ 60.'

x

"You don't seem surprised to see me," Siobhan observes, relieved her message had gone through. Father Donaldson had offered to perform this duty while she would prepare for the Noon Mass, but she had turned down his offer. Now, standing in this white, sterile place, despite the company, she wishes she'd accepted.

"On the contrary, when Agent Gibbs informed me last evening of your particular attachment to Lt. Dumas, I expected you would come today to offer the final Sacrament of the Church."

He leads her to the bank of refrigeration units lining the right wall, not wanting to prolong the moment. Taking hold of one of the handles, this one about waist high, he looks at her. "I understand you had a personal relationship with her. This will not be pleasant. You may want to prepare yourself."

She takes a deep breath, mentally braces herself. "Go ahead."

x

Ducky pulls the handle, opens the door, reaches in and draws out the sliding metal platform containing the pale body of Christina Dumas. A blue sheet covers her to her shoulders and a lighter blue covering drapes her head down nearly to her eyes. He had placed them this morning to cover the marks of the whips and of the thorns that had sliced the woman's head.

He looks up at O'Mallory, who had been unable to contain a broken gasp but now stands silent, visibly trying to contain her emotions. She had blessed herself silently, but it takes her several moments, staring at the face of her friend, to regain her voice. "You may tell Agent Gibbs," she says with tremulous breath, "that this is Tina."

"Yes," he replies sympathetically.

She steps toward the closest examining table. Setting the small wooden box she carries upon it, she opens it and takes out several small items, returns to the body. "I'll - I'll need you to move back the cloth."

"Of course," he reaches out; then hesitates. "You have been told that …"

"Yes, Agent Gibbs told me what to expect - what that … person … did to her."

x

Ducky lifts back the cloth which had hidden the head wounds. Siobhan holds back her breath as she sees the deep downward furrows that braded strands of long thorns, or so he believes, had carved into Tina's forehead and all about her head under her blonde hair.

Trying very hard to pretend this isn't one of her best friends, Siobhan opens a small bottle and moistens her fingertip with oil. Ducky and Palmer stand reverently on the other side of the body; this is not the first time they've been witness to this ceremony and, unfortunately, it won't be the last. The priest's words are soft, the One she is speaking to able to hear her quite clearly.

x

"Deliver your servant Christina Anita Dumas, O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil and set her free from every bond;" her words catch in her throat. She continues carefully a moment later; "that she may rest with all your Saints in the eternal habitations; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, forever and ever."

Her words quiver at the end despite her control and she mentally chastises herself for this unprofessional slip. She had prepared herself through prayer and meditation and finds all her preparations have been useless. She pauses, clamps down her control with iron force, tries to forget her feelings, forget her grief, forget her unprofessional break.

She touches her moistened fingertip to Tina's forehead, unable to not see her face and her voice breaks, forcing her to continue in a careful whisper. "Christina, I anoint you with - with–" Her whispered words shatter and she must continue in silence.

Ducky and Palmer stand reverently until she finishes.

xxx

Gibbs, DiNozzo, David and McGee board the elevator from the cafeteria where, fortified by breakfasts, they are ready to face a day which Gibbs has already begun with his call for their verbal reports. He could look at the written ones from his desk, but he prefers this more immediate method. He hadn't asked for them over breakfast, allowing them an unpressured meal, but breakfast is over.

Tony DiNozzo, however, has other ideas and it's hard even now for him to put aside the time when he was 'Team Leader'. And while banter over breakfast is fun and frees up the mind for the burdens of the day, nothing takes the place of a round of his favorite game; 'Torment the Probie'.

"You know," he begins broadly, always a bad signal to his friends, "I still think the Probie is the best one to get the inside story from Mother O'Mallory."

"Really." Gibbs' bland tone barely makes it a question. He knows what's coming and decides to permit it anyway.

"Oh _yeah_, you should have seen that hug and kiss, boss. I tell you, it was–"

"I _asked_ you to give it a rest, Tony," McGee reminds him and his voice grows tight with anger. "She's an old friend from Maryland."

"Yeah, but you've seen her since."

"Sometimes." Seeing the looks on their faces, he's forced to be truthful. "Occasionally." They don't give in. "We used to date, okay?"

"When she was a _Cheerleader_," DiNozzo reminds them, relishing the word.

"That was a long time ago." McGee sees the look on his face and doesn't care for it. "What?"

"I don't know, McGee;" Tony grins, enjoying the moment immensely, "I'm just having a hard time picturing you boom-booming a Pr–" The elevator shakes violently as DiNozzo's back slams into the wall, McGee's fists clenched in his jacket.

x

The elevator is profoundly silent. Tim's face, inches from DiNozzo's, is a mask of tightly held rage. DiNozzo, looking into his friend's eyes, suddenly realizes he's worried, not about what the man may do, but what he's thinking.

"McGee," Gibbs' warning is level, toneless. He can't reprimand the man, he had permitted this, but he's as surprised as the others.

At that moment the doors slide open, revealing the Squad Room. McGee releases DiNozzo with a sharp snap, turns and exits the car, turns left and strides down the hall away from the common area. He's not heading to any particular place, just away.

The three other Agents step out of the car, but McGee is already out of sight. "Looks like you hit a nerve." Ziva tells him, secretly wishing Tim had done far more to put the man in his place.

"Nerve?" DiNozzo says wonderingly, looking down the empty corridor. "I hit the whole damn cluster."

Gibbs, seeing the wrinkles of McGee's fists in DiNozzo's jacket refrains, this time, from giving the man a 'wake-up call' to the back of his head. There would be little point in trying to improve upon McGee's.

xx

Tim stands on the edge of the roof overlooking the base, trembling in fury. He's unable to remember the last time he had been so angry. Over the years that he has known Anthony DiNozzo, the man had been at various times an annoyance, a source of aggravation and embarrassment; and at some time he could never pinpoint the man had become a friend.

But despite the all too frequent occasions when he had been annoyed by him, he had usually managed to channel his response through sarcasm or humor, whatever it took to defuse the negative feelings raised. He had never before felt such a sudden and overwhelming _rage_.

Tim knows he is too angry to return to the Squad Room, not until he can regain control of his emotions. He can't remember the moment he had broken - in one moment he had been thinking about Siobhan, in the next he had DiNozzo slammed against the elevator wall, his hands clenching his friend's jacket as tightly as he could. He didn't want to let go for fear his hands would wind about DiNozzo's throat.

His relationship with Siobhan had evolved over the years, becoming vastly different from what either of them would have expected. The years between High School and his joining NCIS in Norfolk - years during which they hadn't seen one another, had formed vast changes in both their courses.

He had been utterly shocked the day, months after transferring as a full time Agent to Washington, that he had attended his own Church one Sunday morning. It had been as typical a Sunday as it could possibly be, though Father Morros had been on vacation, and _she _had passed him at the rear of the procession.

He can't remember a word of that Service today, not even her Sermon. The shock hadn't left him until well after the Mass had concluded. When, at Communion, they had been inches apart, he'd fancied she had been as surprised as he had.

But though they have seen one another on numerous occasions since that utterly shocking day, it was with the maturity of long friendship. His love for her had evolved into something deeper than the physical passion that had spiced - that had frequently _over spiced_ - their early years together.

She was a good friend, someone he did not _allow_ himself to think of in any other terms. Should such thoughts or temptations assail him, he always thrust them aside - occasionally with great force.

That is why, he thinks, Tony had made him so angry. The thoughts he had of Siobhan were tempered, very _carefully_, with the awareness of her new life, a life that strongly curtailed any possible thoughts toward the physical; at least for him. Though the 'regulations' of their religion are considerably different from those of the Roman Church, particularly in the areas of marriage and celibacy, he _can't _think of her in those terms.

She is a Priest. He can't think of her romantically - and _especially_ never sexually - despite vivid and long-spiced memories. He _can't_ allow himself to think of her like that.

He _will_ not allow himself!

x

That, he realizes, is why he had snapped and why even now he doesn't trust himself to go downstairs, but stands up here in the warm winds on the edge of the roof, a possible source of distress to anyone who might look up and see this 'suicidal' maniac. He had fought, for all the time since they had renewed their friendship - not romance - friendship, to establish a line which she doesn't know about and which he will never cross.

Despite memory, despite desire, despite all temptation, he has established this line to preserve their friendship at the level it is. He _will _maintain a careful line where they will remain friends and he will not let her know that to this day memory of what they used to have in private moments of incendiary passion spices his thoughts and flavors his occasional dreams.

Those times are of the _past_. They have different lives now and those moments have to be relegated to where they belong, to the realm of pleasant memory. They have no place anywhere in their lives.

He is an NCIS Agent but she is a _Priest_. He has drawn a line - perhaps unnecessarily in light of Episcopal rules permitting relationships and marriage - but he has drawn it.

He can't cross that line.

He _will_ not cross that line.

_He will not_!

xxx

"Hi, Ducky. Gibbs sent me down for an update," DiNozzo tells him as he enters.

"Right this way, then." The body of Lieutenant Dumas is already in one of the coolers and Ducky will not speak of her out of her presence. He opens the door, slides out the metal tray bearing her body.

"Be gentle with her, Ducky,"

"I always am," the man replies, almost offended.

"I mean she's an almost-priest."

"Indeed?" Ducky considers this interesting. DiNozzo doesn't know the woman has already been here and Palmer is escorting her to her car.

"Minister, actually. The Eucharistic kind." He fishes his PDA out of his pocket. "So say Father George Donaldson and Mother Siobhan - rhymes with Vaughan - O'Mallory of St. Mary the Virgin Church on New York Avenue."

"Mother O'Mallory? Episcopal?"

"Good guess."

"Hardly a guess, my boy. The Anglican Communion is one of the very few major denominations that has been ordaining women for several decades now."

"Right up Gibbs' alley." At Ducky's questioning look, he explains. "Gorgeous redhead, eleven out of ten..." He stops at Ducky's disapproving look. "Well, anyway, I'd've expected Gibbs to show some interest, being that she's a redhead, except for the way she kissed the Probie."

"Indeed?" Now this _is _interesting. He senses a story coming on but also that, with DiNozzo's relish, there's a strong element of privacy involved. "I worked with a Vaughan once," he says instead, "back in the 70's, in New York. Fine fellow. Too tall though. But I shall have to take a waiver on that story." Having successfully derailed DiNozzo's train, he directs his attention back to the investigation.

"I discovered none of the usual causes of death for Lieutenant Dumas: gunshot, stabbing, broken bones... Though she was extensively beaten, pending Abby's toxicity tests it appears the major cause was, as I related earlier, a catastrophic rupture of the right ventricle..."

xxx

Abby Sciuto stares into her microscope at 10:00 a.m., knowing Gibbs will want her report as soon as he arrives and she's ready for him. She is also sweltering, but this time it's not from emotion. The air conditioner that had given her intermittent problems for two days has chosen this morning to cut out entirely, just when she needs it most. She hadn't had a chance to return home this morning so she still wears the clothing she had worn to the late-night, pre-dawn party she had gone to; attire completely inappropriate to the workplace. She smiles very briefly at the irony. If she considers her attire inappropriate, that says a great deal.

Normally she would just put her long white lab coat on and close it when anyone comes in, but this time it's so hot that the convenience becomes a burden she has no choice but to endure.

When, over a softened moment in the music not quite blaring from her radio, she hears the glass door separating her lab from the elevator open, she quickly closes the three buttons of her white coat and turns with an anticipatory smile - which dies on her face.

There's no one there.

She looks around for the cause of the door's activation as it closes again. No one is present and she hopes she will not have to call upon Maintenance for _this_ too.

Every time someone comes, ostensively to fix something, they're so distracting she must put her serious thinking on hold until they are gone. If they have to fix _two_ things, she'll never get any work done.

Returning her attention to the slide containing a small smear of blood, leaving the coat closed even in the heat, she makes a minute adjustment to the focus on the microscope and the lab doors slide open again. She looks back, a frown creasing her features. Still there is no one there.

She watches the doors close again with mounting annoyance.

Leaving her stool, she turns off the radio and stalks over to the offending door, determined she'll fix the problem herself and will save herself _two_ visits from Maintenance. It's bad enough they haven't yet responded to her call to fix the air conditioner which is holding the room at 80 degrees, but if she's going to start having trouble now with the doors, she'll take her inappropriate attire and go home.

She doesn't reach the door, however, before she hears the door to her office open behind her. Turning around sharply, she sees no one but watches the door slide shut. Behind her now, the main doors slide open again, but this time she doesn't bother turning.

"Michael Kane," she calls loudly, remembering the outré elements of the white witch's murder; "are you haunting me?"

"No," replies a voice at right ear. She whirls, Gibbs standing an inch behind her.

"Gibbs! What are you _doing_?" she demands.

"Happy birthday," he tells her and hands her a silver device about the size of a cell phone. He notices that her lab coat is closed, buttoned securely in a room that must be nearly 80 degrees. He can't recall the last time she had worn her long coat closed, certainly not with the AC she had complained about yesterday being out of order. She'd told him once she hated anything that hindered her freedom of movement. 'Unless I'm in bed,' she'd continued, but he'd stopped listening.

"It's not my birthday." She protests mildly, smiling, knowing he knows that full well. She's happy to get a present anyway and accepts the tiny unit. "Thank you."

"It'll control both doors: open, close, lock and unlock."

"These doors don't lock," she reminds him.

"Serves you right for not working weekends."

She grins her surprise, but; "It's Thursday. When were you going to tell me?"

He just smiles enigmatically. "Look here." He points to the device, which has five buttons, a red one above four white ones which are arranged in a square. There are tiny letters engraved next to the appropriate buttons. "The top set control the outer door, the bottom the inner door, left is open and close, right is lock and unlock. The red button is very important. It closes and locks whatever doors you point it at _and_ sets off alarms in Operations, Security _and _the MP station."

"Gibbs, that is so _sweet_!" she exclaims, reading the underlying intent. "You're always watching out for me." She's already been victimized twiice, obviously the inspiration for this gift. The first incident was when Mikal Mawher, her ex-boyfriend and stalker had gotten as close as the window to her left. Then Chip Sterling, who had used the access he'd gained as her Assistant to frame Tony DiNozzo for murder, had tried to kill her when she had gotten too close to the truth.

"Have to take care of my best girl."

"Awww, thank you." She hugs him affectionately.

x

"So, what can you tell me about Lt. Dumas?"

"First," she begins, putting the remote control in the pocket of her white lab coat, "Tony and Ziva were right. Take a look at this." She leads him to a table upon which are spread most of the contents of Dumas's cupboard. "She's more of a health food guru than Michelle Lee is. They could've had endless fun on Natural Foods shopping sprees.

"From Ducky's blood and tissue samples, she's smoke free, drug free, alcohol free - except for what she got at Church. She should've lived to be 100."

"So he didn't drug her or anything."

"Nope. But I'll tell you this: the creep used a condom. I found microscopic traces of latex in the samples Ducky sent, but no fluids. What is it lately with rapists and rubbers?" She asks in high frustration, thinking of Burke from Clarkson Lakes as well as their current objective. "Used to be I would be nailing perps on DNA, now I'm nailing prophylactic manufacturers."

"And this one?"

"Trojans; and the _non_-lubricated, _non_-ribbed variety they _used_ to make but haven't made in years and years," she continues at her customary 33rpm record on a 45 turntable pace. "These are 'dime store' variety from the days when there were dime stores; and before women started having some input in sex - so to speak."

"You figure he had these on a shelf for all those years?"

"He must have. When the better brands came out these man-ufacturers, if you'll pardon the pun–"

"I won't."

"I know, were left sitting on a mountain of useless condoms." She smiles, hoping to force him to share her mental image, but the look he gives her instead shows that he is not in a fun mood. "Okay, so they were dumped onto Clinics and so forth by the free ton; but that was years and years ago. _They _don't even use them anymore."

"Why?"

"Because they _hurt_, that's why!" She can barely believe he asked the question, but then remembers he's looking into the motivation of a sadistic rapist. "We _like_ lubrication, Gibbs, especially the amount you stir up."

"Abby."

"If a woman's not properly fired up," she continues, ignoring his admonishment, "sex is _not _the fun thing nature intended it to be."

"And your conclusion?"

She cringes inside. "He wants it to hurt."

xxx

Chrissie Night opens her eyes, feeling the chill permeating her body. The source is obvious as she wakens; she's lying, completely naked, on a cement floor. She tries to sit up, pushes her long black hair from her face and the full horror of her experience comes to her with the pain between her legs.

She remembers his weight upon her, remembers her screams which now burn her aching throat. She remembers his stabbing into her with merciless, brutal force, tearing shrieks of agony from her. She remembers every thrust into her dry flesh until finally pain and terror climaxed and let her escape into oblivion.

Until now.

She hadn't died in that first terrifying, smothering attack. Now she wishes she _had_.

Sitting up, she looks around the ten by fifteen foot cinderblock room and at the steel grey door before her. There is a set of wooden two by fours lying propped against the wall in the corner, nailed together in the shape of a cross. Hanging near it from a hook driven into the cinderblocks is a circular crown of brown thorns, each thorn an inch long. On another hook near the door is a whip, several long straps attached to a handle.

Even as she stares at these in mounting horror, the combined symbolism registers with merciless clarity upon her fear-flooded mind, she hears a key turn in the lock of the steel door.

She scrambles to her bare feet, backs away, unable to help it. Terror consumes her as he comes into the room, closes and locks the door behind him. She backs away until she's stopped by the cold blocks. The cold hurts as she shivers from both cold and terror. She can't believe this is happening to her, that he's stripped her and brought her to this chamber of horrors. He has already raped her once and in his eyes and his horrible bare body she can see his renewed desire.

His eyes burn her naked body. He lingers on her full breasts, so obviously enjoying her gasping breaths that make them heave that she tries her best to hold her breath just to stop them. His eyes rub her body as his gaze locks on her hairless pubes. She's so sorry and humiliated now that she keeps herself so carefully trimmed.

"Ready for more?" he asks, reaching out and taking the whip off the hook. She sees with mounting horror, as it catches the light of the bare bulb over her head, that the ends of each strand have bits of jagged metal attached to them. "Because I am."

He stalks toward her and she presses harder into the cinderblocks, unable to escape. He comes closer. She longs to meld into the wall. He raises his arm, holding the metal tipped straps high. She screams as he brings it down, her screech shrill as pain explodes in her left breast. The shards rip her flesh, the force spins her about–

xxx

"Were you able to get any dental impressions?" Gibbs asks.

"Was I _ever_. Ducky was able to lift fourteen sets of uppers and lowers from her breasts and two from - well, you know. It looked like the bastard tried to _eat_ her. There was tearing and–" She forces herself to stop. There is no need to elaborate, he'd seen the damage and she doesn't want to think about it. Every time she does, she gets a sympathetic pain in her own vagina while nausea threatens her.

"But I'm not sure I can do much with dental impressions. I'm running a match scan now; but I don't think this guy's ever _seen_ a dentist."

"There must be something."

"_Yeah_, Gibbs, but unless he's in the database I'm getting zilch. Dentists don't normally turn their records over to the police. Someone has to already be classified a 'biter' before there's anything." She knows she's repeating what she'd told him yesterday, but she's frustrated and aggravated.

x

"What's wrong?" he asks suddenly.

"What do you mean?" she returns, confused. He'd asked the question seemingly out of nowhere and had derailed her thoughts.

"You're not usually so pessimistic. Normally, you're telling me what you can do, regaling me with some new wonder. You've spent the past two days telling me what you _can't_ do."

"I guess I'm just in a slump. I got over my …well, but the cramps…." She stops, knowing he does not really want to hear this. She rubs her forehead. "And I'm hot!"

"Well, that happens in August. And until they fix your AC, there's not a lot more you can do but keep the windows open. Why don't you open your coat? In fact, why _do_ you have it buttoned up to the neck?" It is not quite so high and he hasn't failed to notice the lack of a shirt collar at the depth of the 'V' of her coat.

She realizes she could just tell him, but as long as they are on the subject she might as well _show_ him. It will, at least, allow her to set aside the burden of this coat. Reluctantly she undoes the buttons, beginning from the bottom. She draws the coat off her shoulders and drops it on top of her stool.

It takes a lot to reduce Leroy Jethro Gibbs to speechlessness and to date Abigail Sciuto had never accomplished it.

Now she has.

x

His mouth slowly falls open, a reflection of utter disbelief at the cross between a leather corset and a bustier that leaves her shoulders bare, her arms bare, her _chest_ bare. The upper halves of her breasts are pushed up and exposed nearly to her nipples by the well defined cups. The upper halves of her areolas peek out at him, the skin lightened by two double curves he recalls her describing as the effect of tiny heart pasties she'd used on a nude beach during her Hawaiian vacation.

Her high thigh 'pants' are the shortest shiny leather and he realizes he had seen longer ones on dancers and health club patrons. These are barely _panties_ and if a daughter of his had tried going out in them he would have sent her back to her room to change and then would have locked the door.

Locked it? He'd've nailed it shut.

The stockings that decorate her legs are black fishnet, not even complete hose as they end in black garters inches below her pants. Black leather high heeled slippers gleam in the lab lights.

"Abby…." He has, over the years, given her a wide leeway in her attire, mostly because he values her talents and abilities more than he does any 'dress codes', but she had always used a measure of decorum – until now.

"I'm _sorry_, Gibbs, but I didn't get home this morning."

He restrains himself from pursuing that line. The thought of her being out in public attired - _barely_ attired - like this …. Well, there are things about the private life of the 'Mysterious of the Dark', as those in the Squad Room call her, that he really doesn't _want_ to know about, so long as she's safe.

"Well, put on a tee shirt," he tells her when he can dredge up his voice.

"It doesn't _go_ with a tee shirt - even if I had one here and I don't." She feels her helplessness transmute again into frustration. "Any other suggestions?"

He looks her over - carefully.

"Don't sneeze."

xxx

"Hey," Ziva says softly as she bends over McGee's desk, peering into his monitor, "you okay?"

"I'm fine," he tells her tonelessly, not looking away from the screen, not revealing anything by voice or face.

"I notice Tony's giving you a wide berth. I think you scared him off."

"I didn't mean to," he says in as contained a voice as she's ever heard.

"Want to talk about it?" For the moment they have the section to themselves. Neither can say how long that will last.

"No." His voice is flat as he stares at the screen.

She gives him a moment; then backs away. "All ri–"

"Yes." He changes his mind, turning to her, his word drawing her back to him. "I'm ..." he hunts for a word, finally giving up, "I don't know what I am."

"You did not tell me how you know Reverend O'Mallory."

"No," he admits, "I didn't." His tone offers nothing more.

The silence draws on - and on. Finally: "She was a good friend, for a long time. I knew her as a free spirited girl who definitely lived for the moment. We were together for four years, until she moved to New York."

"Were you surprised when you found out she'd become a Priest?"

"No,"

"Oh, I would have thought–"

"I was _shocked_."

"Now that is the Tim McGee I know." She smiles, trying to get one out of him and utterly failing. He turns back to the screen, not quite shutting her out but not letting her in any further. "So, you have seen each other since then?" There is just enough extra baggage in her tone to get his attention and he looks up at her with a small smile.

"Jealous?"

"She is not Abby." Her tone conveys that she does not believe she has anything to worry about.

"Yes, we've seen each other - on occasion - but never _socially_. I'd just visit her church _on occasion_. We don't see each other socially; it was always when she was 'working'. This case has definitely crossed some lines."

He's not pleased.

He returns his attention to his monitor, but Ziva senses there is far more than just the case.

"How are you handling it?"

He looks up at her, even his inexhaustible patience with _her_ nearly sapped. "How am I 'handling' it? One of my _best friends_ is going through something I can barely _imagine _and do you _know_ what Gibbs has me doing?"

"Looking for loopholes in their rules of confessional anonymity."

"_There are no holes_!" He pulls it in, draws down a few thousand megawatts. She doesn't deserve to be his target. "The rules are nearly 2,000 years old - don't you think that if there _were_ any holes they'd have plugged them?"

"Tim, I am on your side," she reminds him. It makes him draw back even further.

"I know, honey. I'm sorry. It's just that I feel like I'm being asked to betray my friend, or to ambush her in some way."

"You are being asked to solve a murder."

This time his smile for her is far more genuine. "You do have a way of putting things into perspective."

"As Tony would say; 'one of my many gifts'."

"In fact, you've given me an idea;" he turns his attention back to the computer, revitalized, "if I can access the original data-stream..."

xxx

Chrissie Night sobs in misery and agony upon the cement floor, alone for the moment. Her captor hit her with the whip over and over. He didn't restrain her but allowed her to move freely; to try to escape the brutal lashes. He followed her about the room, the bladed whip cutting into her, tearing at her. He'd hunted her, hitting her a dozen times before putting the torturous scourge back onto the hook. He'd stalked up to her, grabbed her hair, threw her onto the cement. He'd pinned her down with his larger body upon hers, forced her legs apart and stabbed into her with brutal force.

She'd screamed over and over, unable to fight his strength, unable to defend herself against his brutality. He's a huge giant against her 5 foot nothing and he used every unfair advantage over her. He'd pinned her to the cement floor, bit her bleeding breasts, bit hard and deeply as she'd shrieked in agony, unable to escape as he 'stabbed' her.

But what he had done to her next had been far more horrific. After he'd raped her he'd raised her knees up and started to bite as though he'd intended to _literally _eat her! She'd shrieked until her voice broke, but nothing would stop him.

Now she lies upon the cement, knowing she'll never escape. She tries to ease the pain, but it's hopeless. She couldn't defend herself, couldn't stop his biting her, now she can't even get up. The pain is so intense she can't move from the cement. "Please God," she weeps, "please help me."

The only answer is the echo of her sobs.

xxx

When Gibbs walks into the bullpen, his Agents are clustered around the plasma screen, upon which is depicted the footage from the hovering helicopter that had plagued them during the initial discovery of Dumas' body. The team, Mallard and Palmer are depicted in miniature. DiNozzo and McGee are at that moment opening and spreading the white cloth that then blocked the camera's view of the woman's nude body. Gibbs notes that the image had been discretely blurred in strategic areas prior to transmission.

"I figured since they interfered with our initial walkthrough," McGee answers Gibbs' unvoiced question, "I'd let them provide us with an aerial overview of the scene."

"What have you learned?"

"Not a lot. There was far too much vibration from the helicopter. The still images are nowhere near as good as our camera got for us." When the footage ends, he turns off the recording.

"Since everything took place behind the hedges," Ziva picked up, "the News ground-based cameras got even less."

"What about later news?"

"The eleven o'clock news gave Christina Dumas' name and information about where she worked," DiNozzo says. Dumas had worked at the same Recruiting Office where, three years ago, they had encountered the 'white feather sniper'.

Kyle Hendricks had murdered two Marine Recruiters and is presently a decomposing corpse in a grave listed in their files, one that none of them has ever felt the urge to visit. The FBI had taken full credit for the 'elimination' of this suspect, even though the Federal Agency's coroner had dug Tony DiNozzo's bullets out of the body.

x

"What about my loophole, McGee?"

Gibbs had assigned to him last evening the task of examining Ecclesiastical Law and records for some way of compelling Reverend Siobhan O' Mallory to reveal what she had been told in the Confessional by the suspected murderer of her friend.

"There _is _no loophole, boss." McGee tells him, something Gibbs uses his hard glare to convey that he doesn't like. "I reviewed the laws and they explicitly state that what's said in the Confessional is so secret a Priest may not reveal anything to solve or to prevent a crime, to save his own life or anyone else's life. And he can't be compelled under the laws of any country to do so."

"Any doctor or therapist, knowing something of the kind, is bound to report it."

"Different rules; these are a lot older and a lot stricter. If a Priest _does _speak, he is automatically subject to Excommunication for life. In 1393, for example, King Wenceslaus IV became suspicious of his wife's fidelity–"

"Isn't he the guy they sing those Christmas carols about?" DiNozzo cuts in.

"No, Tony, that's older too." McGee retorts, not appreciating the interruption. "Anyway, Wenceslaus went to John Nepomucene, who was Vicar to the Archbishop of Prague and also the Queen's Confessor, to make him reveal the content of her confessions. Even though she was not being unfaithful and Wenceslaus _was_, he wanted 'evidence' that _she _was cheating on _him_.

"Nepomucene refused to tell him anything about what was said in the Confessional. Wenceslaus had him tortured for weeks until, on March 30, 1393, he was drowned in the Moldau River. Nepomucene never broke his vow of silence and was ultimately Canonized a Saint.

"There was a similar case a few hundred years later, where a Priest was tortured and burned alive at a stake for refusing to break 'Sacramental Seal'.

"Canon Law _also _specifies that any Lay person, hearing something inadvertently, whether from the penitent or elsewhere, that had been discussed in a Confessional is bound by the same laws. He's subject to Excommunication if _he _speaks of what he's learned."

"And this applies to this case because?"

Tim can barely hold his frustration. "Because if torturing her for a couple of months and drowning or burning her at the stake isn't going to work, there's nothing you can say in our Interrogation Room that will."

"I don't _intend_ to torture, burn or _do anything else_ to her!"

"I - I know that, boss. It's just that–"

"Let's go."

"Go where?" McGee realizes too late that the question is an unfortunate one. Gibbs looks at him as though he has just gotten '2 + 2' wrong.

"To Church."


	7. Crucified

Chapter Seven  
Crucified

The team arrives in the sparsely populated Church a few minutes before the Concelebrated Noon Liturgy begins with Donaldson leading. The Agents immediately separate, taking widely varied vantage points. Tim McGee notes that the green frontals on the Altar and lectern that had been used yesterday and were appropriate today have been replaced by plain white, matching the vestments of the Priests. This morning the formerly subdued church is brightly lit and the stained glass windows paint the mahogany pews.

There isn't a large crowd this Thursday but the Agents are sure that, once word begins to spread, the Sunday service will be much more heavily populated. Each notes the responses on the faces of those in their sectors as the announcement of the dedication of this Service is made.

The news services had only reported the death of 'Jane Doe' and later in the evening had given her true name, but there was no public declaration to tie her to this place. There are certainly some astute enough to read the facts correctly and the agents know word will spread quickly.

Of greatest interest to the scattered team is any unusual reaction to the death of Christina Dumas.

McGee's attention is split. Some is on the congregation, most is on his friend. He watches her face, sees the pain she tries to hide. She can hide from some others, she can't hide from him. Her heart is breaking and he's too far away. He feels her pain in his own heart and longs to bridge the gap between them, to ease her hurt.

He can't help her.

xx

The Service is a half-hour long. After it ends the Agents allow ten minutes for the Priests to make what preparations they must. Then they make their way, by the same wide path as yesterday, to the office.

They're unchallenged by the Secretary in the outer office, the inner sanctum is left open for them and today there's a third person in the office when they enter. This man is short, round and in his late 40's. He wears the same traditional black attire that Donaldson does, rather than O'Mallory's light blue and encircling collar. Introductions reveal the new Priest to be Father John Wingard from 'the Diocesan Office'. They have little doubt that his role is as counsel in several senses. A sufficient number of chairs have been set up and the group sets to business.

"Again, our condolences," Gibbs begins.

"Thank you," Donaldson says.

"Mother O'Mallory, I understand that your laws forbid you to tell what you were told in the Confessional and I respect that." Gibbs notes that Wingard sits at the side of but toward the front of O'Mallory's desk, closer to the Agents, as though to shield her from them.

"Thank you."

"But if you can't tell us what he said, what can you tell us about him?"

"Nothing," Wingard answers for her.

"I beg your pardon?" He had been hoping for a more negotiated settlement, not a bald declaration of refusal.

"Canon Law is very strict. Even if Mother O'Mallory knows the identity of this person - and it has yet to be conclusively proven that the unknown penitent is, in fact, the killer of Miss Dumas - she is forbidden to reveal anything which might in any way, by detail or inference, lead to the identity of the confessor."

"We're not looking for the killer of Lt. Dumas."

"No?" Wingard asks, taken aback.

"No sir. We're looking for her rapist and her torturer, who mutilated and abused her until her heart exploded."

The three Clerics exchange glances. "Agent Gibbs, if you intend to shock us into complying, you have no need to. We all deplore what happened to Miss Dumas, we are equally outraged and anxious for his capture. But we are bound by laws we are powerless to break. Whatever physical evidence you may uncover with your skills, whatever witness testimony you may obtain _other _than Mother O'Mallory's, you have our blessing and full support."

"Unfortunately, while we have a multitude of prints, none have turned up yet on AEFIS."

"What does that mean?"

"It means none of the fingerprints we've found so far match anyone with a criminal record. Lacking any witnesses, we have to depend upon Mother O'Mallory."

"But there are witnesses," O'Mallory declares quietly.

x

This gets their instant and intense attention. "I'm sorry, I was too upset last evening to remember," she confesses.

Gibbs, knowing how shaken she'd been, isn't concerned about the past, only this detail. "Who are they?"

"When I stepped out of the Confessional about a minute after he did, he had already left. But Mary Carter and Marjorie Fulton were on the Gospel side of the Church and Helen Craig was just walking out the door. He probably left right in front of her. Charlie Morley was up in the front pew near the Gospel lectern, though his back would be to the Confessional, and Mark Jordan was working in the Choir loft. He'd have had the best view, but when I came out he was working on the organ and his back was to the church." She passes a paper to Wingard, who hands it to Gibbs. On it are five names, addresses and phone numbers. "I doubt any of them could see or would take notice of someone leaving the Confessional."

"We'll talk to them."

"Both Charlie and Mark are here today."

"McGee." That is all the instruction he has to give.

Knowing this is the best and most useful evidence they will get, there is little need to stay, but as they prepare to leave, Gibbs fixes McGee with a look.

He turns back, not really wanting to say it. "Mother O'Mallory, may I have a word with you in private?"

She doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

xx

Two minutes later the pair is alone in the large rectangular garden between the Church and Hall, seated on a stone bench facing the Church. The spraying stone fountain bubbles quietly behind them. "Timmy," she says before he can speak, "if you're here to get me to admit to anything, I am going to be very disappointed."

McGee regards his old friend sadly, noting how the early afternoon sun glints off the gold frame of her glasses. She'd worn them when he had first known her, when she'd been doing wild cheers in a scandalously tiny blue and yellow uniform and he had been a studious young man no one else would even glance at - until she'd made it her personal business to get to know him. He'd always hoped she'd been happy with what she'd found.

He wonders if she's still going to be. "Agent Gibbs assigned me, last evening, to find a loophole in your laws. I told him there aren't. I don't intend to try."

"That's good." She is quiet. She doesn't want to commit herself to anything. He'd asked _her_ out.

"It's good to see you again, Shav," he says into the silence.

"You've seen me often, Timmy." She doesn't mention how she feels that he's used his old nickname for her for the first time since this nightmare began.

"Not like this." He looks about the garden, emphasizing their solitude.

"I know. But I shouldn't see you now, even - _especially_ like this. I told them you were an old friend, that I could trust you, but …."

"You're being watched."

She shakes her head. "Not like that. They know I will not give in, not to Special Agent Gibbs, not to the police - and not to you."

"I don't want you to give in to me, Shav."

She smiles slyly. "You _have_ changed, Timmy." Her smile, and his, say so much they can't say, bear so many memories they can't recollect openly now. But–

x

"Shav, I know what you're going through. I just want to say - that I'm here to help."

"Help?" she asks carefully.

"Not with the case. With … well, you know."

"Yes, I know. And I appreciate it." For a time she's silent, burdened by her thoughts.

"Timmy, the Love of God sustains us and we are here to carry that Love to others, to help them find comfort and to see God's will in this." He hears her brogue grow strong with her emotions. "We're to remind them, to teach them that no matter how much it hurts there _is _a good and valid reason for what happened - though for the life of me I can't find it. And I'd be a liar if I told you it doesn't hurt. Tina was one of my best friends and I miss her terribly."

"I know." At her questioning glance, he tells her that "I've lost people I've been close to. On this job that happens more often than I can bear." The sudden death of Kate Todd still stabs his heart. Some nights he dreams she's alive and wakes to fresh loss. "Lately, a lot of those times, I think of you." Her look becomes even more questioning. "You've been kind of a 'lifeline' for me, even if you never knew it. When things get really bad, I try to imagine what you might say to me."

"I'm flattered. Thank you." She takes his hand in hers. "Timmy, there is one way you can help."

"Anything."

"I need you to be _my_ lifeline now, my 'secular lifeline' so to speak. It's my job to offer comfort and council, but suddenly I realize I need someone _I_ can go to, someone who's not part of this church."

She look is intense, one that carries the sum of their years. "For five seconds, would you please forget about this collar?"

He knows what she is asking. Reaching out, he puts his arm about her shoulders and she can lean against him as they sit side by side in front of the Church, the stained glass reflecting the sun back to them, the fountain behind them bubbling quietly. For a moment she can just receive the comfort of an old and dear friend. "Thank you," she whispers softly.

xxx

"We just seem to keep running into each other." Colonel Charles Dougherty says when Gibbs, David & DiNozzo enter the street-side Marine office where Lt. Dumas had worked as a Recruiter. This 'interview' and examination of the scene they would take together, then the two Field Agents will split up to consult the three female 'witnesses' from the Church. Helen Craig being the most likely prospect, Gibbs will interview her.

When he and DiNozzo had last been in this office Dougherty, then a Major, had been in charge of the site and of the entire Recruitment program for this city, now for the Eastern Seaboard. "Hell of a thing," Dougherty says, disgusted.

"Yes, sir."

"Dumas was a good woman and it really helped having her here. Female recruitment in this office jumped forty-one percent since she took over that desk," he says, indicating the one near the window, the one Gibbs had used during the undercover stakeout following the murder of Staff Sergeant Alvarez.

Gibbs glances at the windows; Dougherty catches the flicker of his eye. "We left the glass in after it was all over, just replaced the one Hendricks hit when he took that shot at you. Since that time all the offices under my command have been upgraded. General Anderson bitched like crazy about the expense, though he didn't order me _not _to. I'd have done it anyway, I wasn't going to lose anyone else." He looks over the team, different from the one he remembers. "And here you are again."

"And here we are again," Gibbs agrees, wishing they weren't.

"I was sorry to hear about 'Captain' Todd. I understand she - died well."

"That she did." It still stings to think about it and he knows it will for years to come.

"Did you take out the bastard that did her?"

Gibbs extends his hand toward the newest member of his team. "Officer David did."

Dougherty touches his forehead to the woman, as close to a salute as he may come to the civilian. "Ma'am."

Ziva doesn't answer, merely nods. She doesn't wish to prolong a conversation to where she might have to reveal that, to do so, she had had to kill her own brother.

x

"What can you tell us about Dumas?" Gibbs asks to divert the conversation.

"I didn't know her well, not personally. Good worker. The ones who are in these offices all up and down the coast are almost autonomous, or as much as they can be. She turned in good figures, fairly few complaints from people she brought in." He recalls the types that had been coming as a result of the tactics of SSgt. Alvarez, whose death had led to his first introduction to Gibbs and his team.

"There's a higher than average number of recommendations to support positions, but despite her recommendations we've a war to fight." His tone makes it clear he would have liked to approve more of her recommendations than he did.

"What about complaints?"

"She kept a file of those, as required by regulations. Her Inspecting Officer is Lieutenant Bradley; he has copies of them that I'll have him send to you for comparison." It will be significant if the number or details of the copies don't match up. Gibbs, however, doubts that'll happen.

"Any personal or discipline problems?"

"At first there were. She was put out of Active Duty because of her heart problem. After six years in the field she was offered Medical Discharge. A Marine doesn't like that, Gunny."

"No, sir, we don't."

"I know what you're thinking, though. How did she stay in uniform with a heart as bad as hers?"

"The thought had crossed my mind." Many times.

"I know a thousand people who would take the MD and go. She lobbied every politician from here to Fairfax; damnedest thing I've ever known. She knew she'd never rise above 2nd Louie, she did it anyway. She told Bradley she wasn't a quitter, that she'd stand toe to toe with any man and kick him in the balls if he didn't give her respect. She wasn't going to let a birth problem rob her of her life.

"She took this desk two years ago next month, but there was a lot of resentment anyhow. She'd served six years before it became an issue. She was going to make the Corps a career, so being put behind a desk was a bad hit for her.

"First couple of weeks, all we were getting out of her were mechanics, radio operators, clerks, surveyors and chefs. Bradley had a talk with her and she eventually rallied around. She kept up her quota and passed it a few times."

x

"So far we've been to her Church and here. That seems to be where she'd divided up most of her time, unless you have some other leads."

"I knew she was heavily devoted to her religion, it showed in the quality of people she sent us. A lot of them were non-combatant oriented. We never did cure her of that, though of course we put them where they're needed." His tone turns grim. "Three months ago I got an application from her for transfer to the Chaplain's Corps. She said it was something she 'had her _heart_ set on'. Clergy don't do a lot of the physical stuff; she could have put in quite a few years, maybe even make that career she talked about. I had to turn her down."

"Why's that?"

"Not because I didn't want to lose her here, though that was some of it. Her problem was that she shot herself in the foot."

"How so?"

"She sent us so many religious applicants that there was no room for her."

xxx

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory steps out through the door in the corridor at the foot of the Choir loft stairs into the garden. She's seeking solace and solitude but finds the gardener Charlie Morley instead. He's working at some flowers in the far right corner bordered by the Greenhouse extending from the Gospel side of the Sanctuary toward the Hall, where Altar plants are kept in cooler weather. "Good afternoon, Charlie," she calls.

He looks over his shoulder. "Ma'am." Charlie, she knows well, isn't a talker. If she didn't have anything to say to him, she wouldn't get another word out of him today.

"Do you have a minute?"

He gives her a broken smile. "Flowers' patient things." He gets up off his knees, slaps dirt from them. "What d'ya need?"

"We're thinking of dedicating this garden in Tina Dumas' memory."

His features cloud. "I hear'd what happen'd t'her. Kid had a heart 'tack whilst someone was messin' with her, Pete told me. Terrible. She were a good kid, she helped me out a lot with the flowers. Din' deserve that."

"No. She didn't."

"You plannin' on dedicatin' the whole garden? Pretty big spread."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Mother, don' mean to be forward 'n all; but once done it's said 'n done. Then - Lord forbid - anyone else youse want to honor, can't take it back."

"Yes," she agrees, pushing her glasses up to rub her eyes tiredly. The man and garden disappear in a thick haze. "I hadn't thought of that." She'd slept badly in the hours she'd even tried to rest. She lets the glasses fall back and the world reappears. "What would you suggest?"

He looks around and points to the far right end, bordered by the corridor between the Narthex and the entrance to the Parish Hall, by the door from which she'd come. "Those was always her favorite; day lilies." He directs her attention to the three staggered rows of thirty tall stems that line the northern wall, the stems topped with buds. Each would, over the course of the summer, burst into bloom with a large orange yellow flower at dawn and by dusk it would close, wither and die until the following summer. Each stem still had at least two buds remaining, some had three. "She use'ta say they was like people; born, bloom and then die too quick, but so pretty in bloom. See that one there?" Siobhan can't tell which one he's directing her attention to. "It's going t'bloom day after tomorrow, then on Monday I'll takes off the closed part, grind it down and plant it into the base. Keeps 'em healthy."

Siobhan is impressed by his skill and knowledge, to say nothing of his eyesight. She still can't tell which one is about to bloom on Sunday; not from here and, she supposes, not up close either.

"Thank you, Charlie."

"Weren't nothin'. They close to findin' who done it?"

"I wish I knew."

Finding no more words to say, he nods to her and returns to the flowers in the southeast. Siobhan reflects that this has probably been the longest conversation she's ever had with him in the two years she's known the man. Seeing him return to his labors, she goes inside, having more to think about now.

She hadn't wanted more.

xxx

Chrissie struggles weakly out of the pain-induced stupor she'd fallen into when, after raping her again while she'd screamed in searing agony, he'd bound her wrists with rope and used a pulley to lift her off her bare feet. He'd shoved the long sharp thorns of the crown that had hung from her prison wall upon her head. They'd cut into her as she screamed, feeling the blood flow from a score of wounds. The blood had covered her forehead, seeped into her black hair and her eyes and down her face.

He'd stood over her, enjoying her pain. Hanging helpless, she'd been unable to wrest the thorns from her head. He'd started to hit her over and over again with that metal ended flogger. The blows tore the flesh from her body until she couldn't scream anymore.

He'd yelled as he'd slashed her the final times: "Thirty five! Thirty six! Thirty seven! Thirty eight! _Thirty Nine_!" Then he'd released the knot holding the ropes, made her fall to the cement and had _jumped _upon her, crushed her to the cement and forced himself into her again.

She can't remember how many times he's raped her. She hurts so much she can't even fight anymore. She could only lay under him and scream until she passed out again.

x

Now she's still on the cement floor. She thinks that a long time has passed, but she can't tell how long. She feels, as awareness slowly overtakes her, that this time there's something under her and her arms are pulled upward and outward. She tries to see through tear- and blood-caked eyes and can just make out her right wrist bound to a piece of wood. Her tormentor kneels beside her and she squeezes her eyes shut and opens them as widely as she can against the painful crusting. She's horrified to see her wrist is tied to the horizontal beam of the cross that had laid on the cement all during her assaults.

"No!" She cries, horrified as she sees him position a long spike against her wrist. She feels it press about two inches up from her hand. He holds it steady against her flesh as she desperately pulls, tries to twist away. The ropes hold her tightly in place. "No! Please _don't_!"

He looks at her and smiles.

"_NO_!" she screams, terrified as he raises the large mallet. It comes down hard and her screech fills the chamber.

xxx

"What have you got?" Gibbs asks his team as they leave the Recruiting Office.

DiNozzo doesn't want to give the obvious answer, but: "A whole lot of files to go over, but nothing that leaps out at us. No threats among the mail she got, at least none we found right off."

"What about fan mail?" DiNozzo looks at him blankly; always a mistake. "Do I have to spell it out for you?"

"The Lieutenant is physically very attractive." Ziva points out as they set the boxes into the trunk of Gibbs' Charger. "A lot of men, far from girlfriends and wives, might have made their frustration at that fact known in erotic terms to their Recruiter."

"I didn't find anything like that."

"There was nothing of the kind in her apartment, no hot and heavy letters from boyfriends or suitors." Ziva admits.

"At least none she kept," DiNozzo counters.

"It's against regs to remove any correspondence from files for personal reasons," Gibbs reminds them. "These files are to be a reflection of both the good and the bad in her work. To filter them, for whatever reason, is a major violation."

DiNozzo turns to his partner. "Would _you_ filter sexually explicit mail from your files, Ziva?"

"Yes," she declares sharply, not caring that Gibbs stands right in front of her. "How about you?"

"No way."

"We figured that," Ziva quips. She's sure the man keeps all such souvenirs.

DiNozzo looks inquiringly at Gibbs.

"You don't _see_ my files, DiNozzo."

xxx

Chrissie Night gasps frantically, the agony in her wrists the worst in her beaten and several times raped body. She's been here for, he tells her joyfully, twenty six minutes. He revels in telling her every minute of her torment. She can't take a deep breath, the pressure of hanging stretches her chest, strains her lungs. The cross stands against the cinderblock wall, held upright by clamps so she can't dislodge it. She's held inches from the floor but it might as well be feet. She can't reach down even with a bare toe to relieve the pressure upon her lungs.

Hanging from the long spikes driven through her bleeding wrists, she gasps faster and faster, her chest heaving for air, never enough. She feels her blood flow down her arms and sides, down her legs to drip upon the floor. The pain is so intense she can't endure it. She can't draw enough air into her starving lungs no matter how quickly, how deeply she gasps.

Her rapist and torturer and murderer - for she knows she's dying - stands just two feet away. He'll never help her. He enjoys her suffocation too much to interfere with it, even to prolong her torment.

Had he driven a spike through her feet - and she can hardly believe she actually _wish__es_he had - she might have a chance to live. She could push against it to take pressure off her starving lungs, could take a breath.

But she can't. Hanging from this cross, her shrinking gasps a desperate rapid bellows in the chamber, she must endure the searing pain in her wrists. She must strain for the barest of air.

Her head swims. She knows she's dying. She doesn't even have the strength to breath as quickly as she had. Her breath grows shallower with every gasp.

She strains to pull in another breath, but it's so slow, so little and forced out so quickly she doesn't believe she can do it again. Her weight, light though she is, has become her executioner. She strains to draw just one more breath. She drags it in slowly, but it's forced out of her weakening body by the pressure of her hanging weight. She tries to draw another, but can get so little, so slowly, so shallowly.

She strains for one more, just one more breath, only one more tiny breath. She puts everything into one last desperate pull, but her strength is gone. Nothing will come.

She can see nothing, her eyes no longer work. There's only a dark blur before her. She feels a hot splash of liquid on her bare leg and is utterly disgusted. She tries again, with all her might, to drag a breath into her agonized, empty lungs.

She desperately strains her whole body for just one more breath - just one last gasp - just one tiny, tiny atom of air…


	8. Shattered Passions

Chapter Eight  
Shattered Passions

Returning from a very unsatisfying interview with Mrs. Helen Craig, who had left St. Mary the Virgin Church just after the Confession, Gibbs is in a foul mood. The examination of the Recruitment Office records is proceeding, but while a clue may come from that, the woman he'd spoken to was clueless.

No, he bites off the ungracious thought. She's nearly 90, remembers being in and leaving the church, but though someone had held the large door before her she has no idea who he was or what he looked like; she hadn't paid attention. He was just one person performing a common courtesy. She had thanked him but hadn't really seen him, being more attentive to the single step to the sidewalk.

He supposes he shouldn't have hoped for more, but unless the others have better luck, the participants in the Senior Nutrition Program are a dead end.

Seeing, peripherally, someone stop at his desk, he looks up to Special Agent Michelle Lee. The woman holds a red file folder in her hand and is very nervous - but when is she not nervous around him?

No, strike that; his foul mood is playing him up. But she's holding a red file and they're never good news. "You waiting to be announced?"

"No, sir - Special Agent Gibbs sir - it's about this request you made for a warrant - to investigate people's teeth?" she finishes uncertainly.

He wishes she'd lose this subservient fear she has of him. To his memory, he'd never given her even so much as a 'wake-up call', though if she doesn't drop it soon he will. "That's right."

"Well, sir, I mean Special Agent sir, the fact is - we can't."

"I'm not color-blind, young lady," he tells her sharply, his frustration getting the better of him.

"No, sir, I realize that, sir. It's just that we can't get a warrant for you to take dental impressions of everyone employed at that church."

"Why _not_?"

She flinches more. "Special Agent Gibbs, sir, the law is very specific. You can't compel a person not charged with a crime to give evidence to prove his innocence or to establish guil–" Gibbs is on his feet, towering over the slight woman, imposing even with the desk between them.

"Come with me," he orders, comes around his desk and stalks toward the elevator, leaving the nervous woman no choice but to follow. He's in the car even before she slips past the closing doors, and his anger fills the small space.

"Sir," she tries to protest, "the last time we had a conversation like this you brought me to the Director and she–." He slaps the 'Emergency Stop' switch and the car jerks to a halt, the main lights dim and the back-up lights under the handrails come on.

"We're not going to the Director." He turns on her. Trapped alone with him in the sealed car Michelle's nervousness explodes into utter terror. "This is a _murder_ we're investigating and our principle witness is under a 'gag order' forbidding her from telling what she knows. The only hard evidence we have are dental impressions that come from one man - and we need to examine the teeth of anyone who might be connected with the case."

"Sir, you can't get a warrant that will have you compel everyone at that Church, indiscriminately, to give up those impressions. You can legally ask for people to voluntarily give you the impressions, but I doubt a Judge will give you a broad order. If it were a Navy or Marine Base you might convince their C.O. to order them to comply, but these are civilians in a Chur–"

Gibbs raises his hand to rub his forehead and Michelle gasps, backs away. Giving her an exasperated look, he completes the gesture. Then, with as much edged patience as he can muster, he says tightly; "Somewhere there's a precedent." He slaps the Emergency switch and the car starts upward, the lights returning to normal. "_Find_ me that precedent - and _get that warrant_."

"Sir, I can't. There is no way any evidence you find will hold up in Cour–"

Seeing death in his eyes, she stops - just as the doors slide open. She can't look away, feeling much like a mongoose confronted by the snake which will devour her. "Your floor," he tells her, anger stripping all tone from his voice.

She flees to safety.

x

As the doors close, Gibbs smiles. Either the young woman will find that precedent or she won't, but he's certain she's now sufficiently motivated to try very hard.

He wonders, however, how long it will take her to lose her timidity of him. She has good qualities and talents but they get drowned in her fear. The day she gets rid of that, she'll become an Agent worth reckoning with.

In the meantime, he has more to do.

xxx

"You wanted to see me?" Tim asks as he steps into Abby's lab an hour after returning from interviewing Mrs. Marjorie Fulton, 67 years old, widowed, living 'alone' in a third floor walkup. She would have been alone except for a menagerie of cats which made their inquisitive and insistent feline presence known to him during every second of the (thankfully short) interview.

The woman had been in St Mary the Virgin Church yesterday afternoon and had, she told him, seen absolutely nothing. Not only had her attention been focused upon her own prayers, but at the best of times she doesn't see well without her glasses, which she doesn't need for praying and so had removed.

He hopes the others are having better luck. He'd been assigned this interview by Tony via cell phone. The Senior Agent had told him only that he had a 'special' lead to follow up and so far hasn't returned. Neither Tony nor Ziva have returned from the field and it's 1700. Tomorrow he still has to interview the Gardener, having missed him during his interview with Handyman Mark Jordan. He's someone McGee definitely wants to talk to Gibbs about.

The first thing he notices when he steps into the Forensics Lab is how hot it is, better than ten degrees warmer than the rest of the building. "Why is it so hot in here?" he calls over her frantic music. Sometimes her choice of music jars his nerves, this is definitely one of those times.

"Oh, it's the air conditioner," she says, pushing her pigtails back. "I have five calls in to Maintenance, my last call I called them a _lot _of things, but they're taking their sweet time."

"What's wrong with the air conditioner?"

"On the fritz again," she tells him from her position near her microscope, where she is bent over, peering into it, "but never mind; _this_ is what I wanted you to see."

She moves aside, letting him get close. He notices that even in this warmth she has her lab coat not only closed but buttoned. He, on the other hand, wants to strip down to a tee shirt. He sits down on the stool and bends over the unit, adjusts the focus, wishing she would lower the volume on the wild vocal.

"What are you listening to?" he asks by way of 'making conversation'.

"The soundtrack to 'Legally Blonde'." The vocal is a frenetic proclamation that 'it's over', but that someone 'can't get me down.'

"She sounds good," he admits, rarely managing to follow much of her music. "Who is she?"

"Pauley Perrette."

Tim thinks for a moment, shakes his head. "Never heard of her."

"I like the way she sounds," Abby tells him, listening to the frenzied beat, "don't ask me why."

When the music ends on a hard drum, plunging the lab into silence and he still has not looked up from the microscope, she reaches for the top button of her coat. "You know, it really is _hot_ in here."

"Well, why don't you open your coat?" He hates to have to state the obvious, though grateful for the silence.

The material falls onto the countertop beside him. "I did."

He continues to look into the scope, making adjustments, but can find no Earth-shattering revelations on the slide. Giving up, he turns toward her. "What did you want me to sssssss?"

"Anything wrong, Tim?" she asks with a coy smile.

x

The leather corset/bustier bares the upper halves of her full, upheld breastsalmost to her nipples, the upper curves of her areola winking at him, her treasurers held on exquisite display. Her pants, if the word could possibly be stretched to include so little material, are shiny leather so brief and high he can actually see more than if she'd worn panties; the stockings that decorate her legs are black fishnet held by black garters and her black leather high heeled shoes gleam in the lab lights.

"What's wrong, McGee?" she asks again, enjoying his speechless astonishment. "You've seen me in less."

"I - er - think I'd remember."

"In your apartment while you were 'guarding' me."

"That was _more _than this - tee shirt and panties - and I couldn't sleep well for a week."

She smiles, happy at the admission. Maybe her plan has a chance to come together after all, late in the day though it is. "In _my_ apartment, when we were dating," she reminds him.

"You kept the lights off. You _said _it was a futon." He reminds her, referring to her infamous deluxe coffin in which they'd shared a night even hotter than this, even though it had been mid-March. He's very uncomfortable with her closeness and the memories.

"Tim–"

"Abby, please," he stands up and away, the stool now between them. "Don't do this."

"Do what, Tim?" she asks seductively, stepping around the stool and up to him. Her breasts seem to lead, she to follow.

He knows her mind, however. It's only been a few weeks since she'd come to him, during that incident with her friend in Virginia, to share her real feelings and he'd contrived ever since not to be alone with her down here again. But that had been weeks ago. "Don't try to seduce me, I love you too much."

x

She stops; eyes wide. This is unexpected. "You–"

"Abby, I've loved you since I met you. We had some fantastic times when we were dating and I'll always cherish them - and you. What I feel for you is a different kind of love but _this_," he waves his hand over her brief 'garment', "is beneath you."

He tries to find the words to say what her outfit does to him and dares not. The effect of the erotic woman, barely wearing this staggering outfit, is too much. If he gives in to what he's thinking when he looks at her, he'll be lost.

Ever since she'd found out about his liking for black fishnet stockings she's worn them on every possible occasion and he's both appreciated and enjoyed that, but _this_ is just too much. "This..." he waves his hand before her, trying to come up with the word, "this isn't Abby Sciuto; the Abby Sciuto I know and _respect_."

x

She steps back, embarrassed. This isn't what she had hoped for when she'd come directly from that late night party. "I thought…."

"I know what you thought. You thought you could remind me of what I'd 'lost' and I would come back. That seeing you like this would be like a dream come true for me - and it _is_! But I can't. _We_ can't. We can't be what we were in the bliss of ignorance. We've both moved on."

In his words, she hears Ducky's warning. But she can't listen to either of them.

"I love you, Tim," she confesses, trying to remind him. She'd meant to say it emphatically, it comes out plaintive. "And I'm never going to stop fighting for that love."

"I don't want you to fight for me; for what we _had_. I want you to be happy for me."

"For you and Ziva?"

"Yes."

"_No_!"

x

He sighs, frustrated, but she won't let him interrupt. "Tim, have you any idea what this is _doing _to me? I can't sleep, I can't eat. I've lost five pounds since I came back from my vacation." He refrains from commenting, considering how much of her he can see, upon how good she looks. "And when I _do _sleep, I dream of you. Of _us_! It's tearing a knife through me," she presses her hand between her half bare breasts, "right _here_. Every time I see you with her it just _stabs_ into me."

"Abby, I don't know what to say."

"Just tell me you love me."

"I _do_ love you."

"Not like _that_!"

"I can't." She steps back as though he'd slapped her. "Abby, the kind of love you want from me I can't give. It's a kind I can only give to one person at a time and Zi–"

"_Don't say that name_!"

x

"Abby..." He searches in the silence for something he can tell her, something that will not hurt her. He loves her too much to hurt her. "Abs, I told you once before that I can't tell what the future will bring. Neither can you. Maybe someday it'll be over between Ziva and I and–"

"And I'll be here waiting when that day comes," she declares fervently.

"But for now its not. And I can't say I'm comfortable with the idea that–"

She holds up her hands, silencing him, begging him for silence. It's all gone wrong. Everything has gone wrong. She's made a damn fool of herself _again_, seeking something she can't have, that he can't give. She wonders, again, why she did not listen to Ducky's advice when she'd had the chance.

x

"Tim, would you do me _one_ favor?" She implores into the uncomfortable silence.

"Does it involve killing Ziva?" he asks cautiously.

The thought does make her smile briefly, but: "No."

"Then what is it?"

"Kiss me?"

He's had worse requests in his life. But as he steps closer, she holds up her hands. "I don't mean just 'kiss me'. I mean kiss me like you _mean_ it; like you meant it in my coffin. If this is going to be our last kiss, if it's going to have to be forever, please Kiss me like you _mean_ it."

x

Reaching out, he draws her close and she molds her body to his. He feels the warm heat of her, her bare flesh under his hands, every inch from bare knees to barer... She presses every inch to his body, their lips caressing as she pours all her love into him and he tries to return that love in the way and depth she deserves.

He feels a painful crack against the back of his head.

x

"What the HELL are you two _doing_?" Gibbs demands as they break apart, each holding their wounded heads. "McGee – Elevator – Now! _You_, stay."

Tim knows better than to delay or to try to explain to the enraged man, but with a look of sympathy to Abby he walks out of the lab.

Gibbs glares at Abby and she backs away, holding her other hand to the top of the black leather, her face deep red. She tries to explain but he raises one silencing finger to her, turns and walks away.

x

As soon as Gibbs is inside the elevator and the doors close it starts to rise. He slaps the 'Emergency Stop' switch and the car immediately halts, the lights dim and those under the handrails coming on. "Boss, I–" but Gibbs silences him; he's too angry. Hands clenched tight, staring at the door, he strives to gain a calm voice, but it takes long tense moments before he manages it.

"I don't know what to say," he finally admits. "I literally do _not_ know what to say to you. I've had Agents pull some _bonehead _stunts, but this–"

"Boss–"

Gibbs whirls on him, almost nose to nose with the younger man. "Do you realize how close you both are to–?" He shuts himself up and Tim is smart enough not to break into the silence.

x

"When things between you and Ziva started I looked the other way," he tells him in deadly tones. "When things between another pair around here started I looked the other way. They think I don't know, but I do. But I figured you're all adults, I shouldn't _have_ to step in. But what do you think you two were going to do if I hadn't stepped in?" McGee's face provides the answer. "That's _right_! And then what about when Ziva finds out - and she will, you can't keep a secret, McGee - and the shooting starts and I have _bodies_ on the ground?" McGee has no answer about this prediction. He knows it's possibly a true one.

Gibbs voice turns quiet and deadly. "I'm telling you this only once: Get your love life under control. I don't care if you're with Ziva, Abby or - or Cynthia Sumner, but get it under control. _Understand_?"

"Yes, Boss."

xx

When Gibbs returns to the Lab Abby takes a step back. She's near the door to her office and reaches into the pocket of her closed lab coat, grasps her remote control, allows her face to show the one thing it never had to him - fear.

"No need, Abs," he assures her.

"Gibbs, I - I'm to blame, not McGee. I seduced _him_."

"Takes two for a seduction," he reminds her, "but I'm not here to yell."

"But I'm guiltier than he is. I started it."

"I never said you weren't guilty, just that I'm not here to yell."

She takes a cautious step forward, but then stops. "You already slapped me," she reminds him.

"Not that either." She tries to push her apprehension aside, to remember who she's dealing with. But that's the problem: she does. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told McGee. 'Get your love life under control'. I don't care how, or with who, but I don't _ever_ want to walk in here and catch you having sex again."

She's about to protest, or to point out that with the gift he'd given her he wouldn't be able to walk in and that she wishes she'd used it, but decides to 'let discretion be her tutor'. "Yes, sir."

x

He turns to leave but; "Don't you want to hear my report?"

"There's a report?" The question hangs in the air, clearly accompanied by the unvoiced one, one she can almost hear in her mind; 'If there's a report, why weren't you giving it instead of playing sweatbox with McGee?'

"Yes, there's a report," she insists, stung by his silent rebuke.

"Well?"

She turns to the microscope McGee had been studying so assiduously. "I found microscopic traces on Dumas' skin, mostly on her back and in some of the wounds. Did you know that when you walk over it, particularly in hard soled shoes, you disturb little microscopic traces, scrapings actually, of whatever you're walking on. Normally the harder the surface, the fewer the number of traces, but there's always something."

He looks at the clock; it is nearly 1730. "_Abby_."

"Cement. I found cement on her skin."

x

"Cement."

"Well, discrete traces of numerous things, but that's what they add up to. She was lying on cement, fairly old. I also found traces of various scouring cleansers, commercial ones. And in the whip wounds, there are traces of blood and cellular residue."

"Abby." Dumas' body had been a chaotic map of torn bloody flesh.

"They weren't hers. She's type O-, the blood type I found is AB+." She lets the implications of this sink in.

"How many more victims do you think there were?"

"I can't put a guess on it. She's definitely not the first, but the traces become more minute with each additional use. I can't swear definitely if there were any more than one extra, or even if there weren't."

"Anything about the cement or the whip?"

"Now there I did score big," she says proudly, her earlier indiscretion buried. She leads him to the centrifuge. "Microscopic fragments of the whip got embedded into the wounds." She pulls from the unit a test tube, one whose contents, sparse though they are, have been forced to separate by density in the powerful centrifugal forces applied to the glass container. "The chemical breakdown of the fibers shows it's over two hundred years old and that it comes from 257 Douglas Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa," she announces proudly, so proudly he can tell she's dying for him to ask:

"Now how could you possibly know that?"

"Simple, 'O Seeker After The Obscure': in 1905 such a weapon was part of the collection of one Archibald LeVie, up until it - and a large number of other artifacts - were stolen in a daring midnight heist," she concludes with relish.

"Heist?"

"Well, burglary," she grants, losing only the tiniest trace of her élan. "Several of the purloined properties were purportedly recovered by Pinkerton men, but not the whip"

"'Purloined properties purportedly by Pinkerton'; you're enjoying your work a bit too much."

"Hey, I slave away alone in the bowels of the earth -" she'd always insisted upon working alone and her high windows look out on the street level of the base, so only the lower eight feet are below ground level, "- and all for the opportunity for ten minutes of dazzle time."

"Abby, you dazzle me all the time."

"Thank you!" she exclaims with a broad and self-satisfied smile, probably thinking that her earlier 'indiscretion' have been forgotten.

Forgiven, actually. A mind like hers he can afford to forgive; but the sight of her nearly unclad body in the burning embrace of Tim McGee is something he doubts he'll ever be able to forget.

"So, you've identified the source; can you tell me where it is now?"

"Not a clue," she declares too happily. "That's what you have a team for."

x

She can see in his eyes that she's lost a point, but doesn't mind. "I can tell you this, however: the cement contains a high percentage of asbestos."

"Fireproofing?"

"In the turn of the century - the last one, not this one - they used it in buildings, actually mixed it into the cement. This isn't generally known, because once it became known as a carcinogenic, especially in discrete particles like we're talking about here, it would have meant razing whole buildings, or doing _major_ renovations, which would have cost a building's weight in cash each."

He leans forward, kisses her cheek. "Thanks, Abs." This is the first solid clue - figuratively speaking - that they have. Pity it came after 1730: he and his team are going to have a late night tracking down probably unused buildings in the Washington area constructed during the requisite period.

"You're welcome," she says happily. "Anything more I can do for you _tomorrow_?" she asks as he walks out, stressing that after twelve hours she's done for today.

He glances back from the closing doors. "Wear some clothes."

For a moment her grin loses some of its luster, but then it is back in full force. Despite all that's happened, she doesn't consider her war with Ziva to be in any way paused. There's still a great prize to be won, she's just scored a major strategic victory - and she's in this war to win!


	9. In Hell

Chapter Nine  
In Hell

When Gibbs returns to the Squad Room, McGee calls him before he can reach his desk. He turns, no less annoyed with the man. "What?" If this isn't significant, he's going to regret attracting attention.

"I interviewed the Handyman, Mark Jordan, and while he was sorry Dumas is dead, there was something about his manner that made me dig deeper. I'd say he's sorry; according to some others on the staff he's asked her out on dates, but she always turned him down."

"Why?"

"Seems she doesn't date married men – particularly one whose wife is on the Vestry."

"Smart woman," DiNozzo observes.

"Dumb man," Ziva chips in.

Gibbs can hardly disagree. "What else?"

"I did a search of Dumas' laptop: his name appears in only one file - a diary. It wasn't even password protected. Apparently she assumed no one else was going to read it in her apartment without her knowing. I counted eleven times he asked her out before she logs that she'd stopped him. She doesn't say how."

"Check into it."

"I also checked into his background. He's clean, but his Amex card shows some interesting transactions, such as purchases at strip clubs, adult boutiques, etc. He bought ten DVDs last month with names like 'Whipping Post', 'Whipped Sluts', 'Porche's Ordeal', 'Pain in Hell', 'Punished Slaves', 'Dresden Diary' 1 through 5 - they're all S&M titles."

"Good work, McGee."

"Shall we bring him in?" DiNozzo asks.

Gibbs wants to say 'yes', but "No. Dig deeper. How did he react to Dumas turning him down? Who knows about his interest in her - and in smut? DiNozzo, you've got first shift. Watch him like a hawk."

"On it, boss." He's away from his desk immediately. He might still be on the clock - but he's out of the office.

xxx

Siobhan O'Mallory lies sleeplessly upon her queen size bed in the dismal blackness. Her heavy 'blackout' drapes, normally used in the daytime when she's required to be up nights, are closed, turning the room into a tomb. She has lain here for hours, not even knowing how many, unable to rest, unable to think, her mind flooded by her friend and her misery. The blackness presses upon her eyes, smothers her. It only makes her think of Tina lying naked and torn in that Morgue drawer.

When she's not seeing her friend dead, she's seeing her friend alive and vital as she knew her. Dozens, scores, seemingly hundreds of prayers do not ease the stabbing in her heart. She doesn't want to cry, not even in the utter solitude of her bedroom, but she can't endure it any longer.

Sitting up, thrusting the thin sheet off her bare body, feeling the heat still enveloping her, she reaches out and turns on her lamp. She winces at the bright light that stabs her eyes. Reaching to her night table, she fumbles blindly for her glasses, finds them by touch and pulls them on. The room appears out of the thick distorted haze before her watering eyes. She looks at the small card set upright against the base of her lamp. She picks it up. Even with her glasses, it takes a moment to focus beyond unshed tears and she considers the words printed upon it.

She shouldn't. It's not right. She's the one who people turn to. She shouldn't impose her pain on others. But the more she thinks on this, seeking reasons not to do it, the more she focuses upon the name printed on the card's center. After a long time she decides - decides she will not think any longer.

She reaches for the phone, picks it up and listens to the steady tone. She shouldn't do this. But the pain that stabs her heart moves her fingers before she can put the receiver down. She listens to the ten tones, then the ringing. It sounds again, again, again, again, again... She's about to put the phone down, to consign herself to her solitary misery, when:

/Hello?/ The voice is groggy with sleep and guilt tears at her heart.

"T–" Her voice catches. She shouldn't do this. She's supposed to be _strong_, not to burden others with her misery. "Timmy?" She can barely force herself above a whisper.

There is a rustle on the line and his voice is no longer sleep shrouded. /What's wrong?/

"Timmy, I –." She can't do it. "I - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." She's about to hang up.

/Nonsense. What's wrong?/

"I–" She can't say it, but neither can she leave him hanging. She's the one who disturbed him. "I - can I - talk to you?"

/Where are you?/

She hesitates, realizing he intends to come to her. It's vastly more than she expected. She's about to force herself to answer when, dimly heard in the background, a woman's voice inquires; /Who is it?/

'Oh dear God!' she yells in her mind, clutching the receiver in her hands. She forces herself to uncover it, to bring it back up. "I'm _sorry_! I–"

/Nonsense,/ he tells her again, this time more forcefully. /Where are you?/ She can hear movement in the background and his voice is much more alert as the rustling sounds cease. He's gotten off the bed.

Before she can reconsider - again - "My apartment."

/I'll be right there./ The line goes dead.

When she puts the phone down on the night table, she catches sight of the clock - 1:22 - and feels a deeper stab of guilt.

xx

"I have to go." Tim says from beside his dresser, putting down the phone and opening his drawer, reaching in and pulling out a pair of boxers. Ziva looks up at him, her black hair artfully disarrayed, the thin sheet falling from her as she sits up.

"Where?"

"I have to meet someone; a friend's in trouble. Go back to sleep." He crosses the room, opens the closet and pulls out a pair of pants, but when he turns she's in front of him.

"What is wrong?" she asks, determinedly blocking his path, unwilling to move until she gets an answer.

Looking at her, seeing more than just her nude body, he sighs. "Reverend O'Mallory. I don't know what's wrong, but she wants to talk."

x

Ziva turns back to the bed, reaches for her discarded panties beside it. Unlike him, she has no wardrobe to change, but she does not consider it unfair; he has the same drawback at her apartment. They do not share apartment space, that was the agreement. "I can be ready in a–"

"Not this time." His words halt her in mid-bend and she turns back to him.

"You are going to interview the principle witness in our case. Of course I am going with you. I am your partner."

"No, this isn't the case - at least I don't think it is."

"Ah," she watches him dress, his pants half way up. If this is not NCIS business "Then a woman calls you up at one-thirty in the morning and you jump out of bed to go to her."

"Ziva…" he crosses the room, takes her shoulders in his warm hands. "She's an old friend who's in trouble. I'm asking you to trust me on this. If its case related, I will call you."

"Of _course_ it is 'case related'."

"Ziva, she's an old friend and she's in trouble," he repeats, stressing this with as much patience as he can manage. "I have to help her. It's not like it is with us, this isn't personal, it's not professional, it's just ... personal."

"You are aware of how that sounds?"

"Trust me." She considers. "Trust me?"

"I'd sooner trust the Pope."

He kisses her. "That's my girl."

xxx

The drive from Silver Spring takes a half hour, and when Tim pulls his car to a stop in front of O'Mallory's six story corner apartment house, he's surprised to find her waiting for him on the sidewalk rather than up on the top floor. She's wearing a pair of faded jeans, white sneakers and a 'Nationals' sweatshirt against the cooling air, about as far from the appearance he has grown used to as she could be. He gets out of the car, allowing his eyes to ask his question.

"I have a lot of neighbors," she explains, "one of whom would _love _to see a single man come into my apartment after two in the morning."

"I understand." He knows she must be extremely careful of her reputation and of anything that might have the _appearance_ of impropriety, regardless of its innocence. Standing nearly under the corner streetlight, he knows they can be clearly seen against the city's 'darkness'.

"Timmy, thank you for coming. I'm so embarrassed that I bothered you, but I just couldn't - I couldn't _take _it anymore."

"Don't worry about it. I'm glad you called me. I'm your 'secular lifeline', after all." He's happy to see the smile, tinged with sadness though it is. He waits for her to explain, but she's still lost for words.

x

"It's been a long time since I've seen you like this," he tells her, trying to get a conversation started, to get her to reach what's bothering her. He looks over her ultra-casual attire, more in keeping with the years they'd spent dating, so long ago. All that's missing is her baseball cap.

"I'll bet when you think of me most of the time it's in that blue and yellow handkerchief they called a 'cheerleader uniform'," she says with an embarrassed chuckle.

"I liked you in nothing better," he offers with just enough lecherous flavor to his tone to keep the promise alive that he'd never treat her 'formally' when they're alone. But the banter is short-lived, nothing seems able to ease her mood.

"I'm sorry."

He leans against his car. "Tell me."

She gestures helplessly. "I feel like an idiot for disturbing–"

"_Tell_ me."

x

She'd been trying for all the time she'd waited to think of what to say and she's still trying. She steps up to him, leans on the warm car beside him and is lost. "I don't know what to say," she finally admits, "I shouldn't have called you. I shouldn't have distur–" He holds up his hand, silencing her.

"You can tell me anything; you always could."

"Not everything."

He sighs and decides it's time to cut through the denials and embarrassment. "Shav, do you remember the time in our Junior Year you got suspended from the Cheerleading Squad and then from school? You told everyone else it was for cheating on your Mid-terms - but you admitted to _me_ that you stole those answers?"

She stares at him, stricken. How could he _possibly_ ever bring that up again?

"If you could trust me enough to tell me _that_, then you can tell me this."

x

She looks away, back to her apartment house; embarrassment at the memory she'd nearly buried in a mental grave, seeking to keep it from wounding her conscience even after so many years, is even greater than this. But it makes her realize she can tell him. If there's anything they've always been with one another, it's honest.

She tries to speak, to tell him of her pain and the misery stabs at her. The pain in her heart grows more intense with every breath. She reaches up, her fingers pushing her glasses up as she rubs her moist eyes, the tears she can barely fight stinging her.

"I miss her." She can barely whisper it, her tight voice quivering as she feels herself losing her battle with her tears. "I miss her so _much_!"

"I know," he tells her softly, remembering so many he'd cared for who'd lost their lives so suddenly, so senselessly. He tries to bury his own feelings, his outrage at what his innocent friend is being forced to suffer; but seeing her like this it's impossible to be 'dispassionate'.

She tries to speak but can only manage to force a whisper. Her brogue, normally strong, becomes so hard he has to work to understand her.

x

Siobhan's voice threatens to break and the harder she fights for control the more she feels it slip away. "I see her _everywhere_. In the nave, the sacristy, _upstairs_..." She yanks off the glasses, rubs her eyes, tries to hold back the tears. She doesn't cry in public, won't ever cry in front of anyone, not even Timmy. She _won't_!

But her voice shakes, broken, gasping breaths. A fine trembling overwhelms her as she struggles to fight grief that can't be contained. "I don't _know _who did it, I _swear_ I don't _know_!"

"I believe you."

"Your boss doesn't. But I don't know!"

"I know." He's never doubted her - ever.

"But he - he told me things I can't _speak _of. And I see Tina," she can't restrain a sob, "and all I can - can think is - is how - I've - _betrayed_ her." Clenching her eyes shut, she tries to hold back the tears that squeeze out to slip down her cheeks. She clutches her glasses, unable to put them back on, unable to see her friend.

"I can't - tell - tell you - George - your boss - _anyone_. I want - want to - but I _can't_! I don't - _know_ - who did it! But even if - if I - knew - I can't - can't…." The harder she tries to contain her misery, the more she loses. "Tina–"

Her voice breaks and she stops, fights for control, her whispered words forced through the tightness in her throat. She _won't _cry. Not even in front of Timmy. She won't _cry_.

"Tina's _dead_! I had to - go down - give her Last - Last Rites. I had - had to look - into her - her face - and I - can't - help - catch - the _bastard_ - responsible for–"

Through the teary mist of her unfocused eyes she can't see Timmy, doesn't see him close on her - but she feels his arms encircle her body and pull her close... and she loses her battle. His gentle touch undoes her and she presses her eyes to his shoulder, tries to muffle her sobs against his chest.

x

Tim holds his old friend close as she clings to him, her body wracked by terrible sobs. He knows her to be a strong, confident and dedicated woman, the tears that overwhelm her come at a terrible price. His heart breaks for her though he dares not show it.

He does his best to keep his face, his body, relaxed and placid. Even though she can't see him, he doesn't want her to feel the towering rage building in him. He focuses on keeping his arms gentle about her, the muscles in his chest relaxed so she won't know how angry he is.

But he also prays - prays that whoever has done this doesn't cross his path while he feels like this.

For now he must concentrate on containing the rage, on being here for his friend, wishing he were able to do more than just hold her out here on the sidewalk late in the still night as she cries and cries and cries.

xxx

Michelle Lee cries out, a keening scream of ecstasy. On her knees, head thrown back, leaning her arched back against the raised knees of the man under her, her breasts held in his hot hands, she screams joyous climax that seems to last forever. Breathless, her scream ends with a ragged gasp and she collapses forward and Jimmy Palmer eases her down by his hands on her heaving breasts. She lies upon his scorching body, their panting loud in the dim room. That doesn't stop them from kissing passionately; breath sacrificed to love as they cling to one another. She doesn't move from him, clenching her muscles about him over and again, unwilling to surrender the instrument of her joy. She draws a groan from the man under her as her body rises and falls with his stentorian breaths.

x

In the dim city light coming in through the curtained window beside his bed, he can see her well enough. He holds her close, caressing her as he tries to regain his breath, enjoying her hot body covering him like a panting, heart thumping blanket. They'd gotten here at nearly midnight after a secluded dinner and made love ever since. It's been over an hour, so he knows the insatiable woman is nowhere near her end. At this pace, she might grow tired, or contented, by around three. As usual, his most frequent and fervent prayer is just to keep up - in every sense.

"I was thinking..." he begins in self defense. If he can engage her in conversation, he can usually buy a few additional minutes to regain his strength, or at least his breath. He's never outlasted her, normally he's exhausted long before she's done, though he is improving. Even Doctor Mallard has noticed and commented upon his new physique - fortunately attributing it to the wrong reason.

He recalls his apprehension at that unnerving conversation and his relief that the Doctor had drawn the conclusion that his improvement was due to working out in a gym. When he'd mentioned 'pumping' his heart had almost turned over. "I was thinking..."

"Hmmm, you said that already." She says softly, nuzzling his ear.

"You make it hard to think." Her warm, luscious body lying upon him is very distracting. He's not sure what talent of hers, sensuality or witchcraft, keeps him hard in her but he'll neither mention it nor complain.

She grins. "That's not the only thing I make hard." She wiggles her hips and clenches her muscles again in a passionate erotic hug, making him groan and almost forget what he was going to say.

"I'm _thinking_," he stresses when he can think again, "that you should go down to that Marine Recruiting Station and see what you can sense."

x

She sighs, her smile disintegrating. _How_ can he think of _work_? She decides she'll have to distract him _harder_ when she catches her breath. She's already ready for more, arching her hips delightedly, feeling him still pressing deep within her.

"It doesn't work that way," she tries, not wanting to break the mood. "I'm psychic, but I - I just have these sensitivities. It's an acquired skill, comes from being a -."

"_Witch_," he finishes with her, "But can't you... well, cast a spell or something to..." He breaks off at her heavy sigh.

"I told you it's not like that;" she says again. "Wicca helps me control it, I've learned how to focus, to protect myself from things that'd drive me crazy if I felt them 24/7, but this isn't television. If you'd just think of it as a Religion and less like Samantha Stevens–"

"Who?"

She smiles. They had rented the new 'Bewitched' video during her 'rest leave', and he'd already proven by his atrocious 'Doctor Bombay' joke in the hospital that he's familiar enough with the original.

She's sorry to feel him slip away. She can't help it, neither can he, but if she can get him off this topic, she'll get him back - and better than ever.

"Okay. The point is I can't walk into a room and tell you who did it and how. My powers aren't that ... powerful. Maybe Kendra Little could, I certainly can't. And I am _not _on this case, I _work _for Legal. Special Agent Gibbs just _borrowed _me for a few days."

"You could get back on full time."

She looks down into his eyes just three inches from hers, wishing they were kissing now instead but passion's drained away. "I know you want me to, but I'm not really sure _I _want to," she admits.

That last case had been uncomfortable, not that there are any other kind, but she prefers to keep her professional and personal lives separate. Except of course in how they apply to Jimmy.

That case, her time with Megan Wood, her revelation to Jimmy of Wicca and her powers, had definitely blurred some lines.

"But it could help your career if you can do this," he insists. "After all, you broke that case."

"Broke it?" she scoffs. "I walked in, got kicked in the belly, got beaten up and wound up in a hospital, only to have a chair broken across my boobs, get batted into a wall and I dropped my gun;" she doesn't mention that she'd also spent a week on disability leave, which she'd hated even more, he knows that very well. "_Y__ou're_ the one who _shot_ him."

The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them, but it's too late. She can't pull them back - she can only watch his expression die. She'd _meant _to say he'd acted heroically in saving Megan Wood's life; it hadn't come out that way.

x

He takes her shoulders, moves her to her right off him onto the bed and gets up, steps away and her heart is ripped with every step.

Michelle feels like an idiot. All the hard times he's been having, all her efforts to help him through his torment, to get him to talk - when he will talk - are destroyed now because she's an idiot!

She follows him. "I'm so sorry," she says to his bare back. "I didn't mean-."

"I know what you mean. Can we just not talk about it?"

Not a day goes by since that fateful morning that he doesn't see George Franklin's bloody body in his clenched fists. He'd demanded reason from the dying man, the reason he'd destroyed three lives, his own included. The reason he had never did satisfy or justify the tragedy. "I just thought that, with your ... talents ... you'd be able to sense something the others missed. It would certainly help your career."

"I know." She also knows he's thinking of far more now than just her career. "But Jim, I'm sorry - that wasn't what I meant." He doesn't answer, doesn't turn, doesn't do anything.

x

She wants to stay, to try to help him, but senses that he's shut her out. "I'll go." She goes back to her bed and bends down, picks up her discarded panties. "I'm sorry."

He turns. "No. God _I'm_ sorry, sorry for the way I've been, but I can't help it. I - I've never _killed_ anyone before."

She steps into her panties, then returns to him, embraces him. "And never will again. But we both know it was him or Megan. And yes, I know that doesn't make it feel better. It just is."

He holds her for a long moment; just holds her. There's no room for words.

x

It's a long time before he can say anything. "Every time I close my eyes I see him. I was in the way. If I hadn't been so - so..." He'd been furious seeing Michelle, already beaten and wounded, brutalized as she had been. He'd been so enraged at what Franklin had done, at the lives he'd destroyed, that he'd been blocking the Doctor's efforts to save him.

"You know that's not true," she reminds him, hugging him. "You did the autopsy - no one could have saved him. That second bullet -."

"Yes, I know. But that doesn't ..." He's silent as she tightens her hug, clutches him almost convulsively, as though trying to show her love and strangle his words at the same time.

"Honey, I wish I could think of something to say, could find the words to help you."

"I wish I'd never–"

"I'll do it."

"What?"

"Go to the Recruiting Center, use my ..."

They both know she's agreeing to change the subject.

"Come on," he tells her. "Finish dressing; I'll drive you."

She just nods, not wanting to say anything more.

xxx

They use her car and both know the reason neither will say. After they're done she'll have to either drive him back home or to hers. Either way, they're not separating.

She's glad. Maybe she can get him to talk.

They're quiet through most of the drive, too quiet. A shroud of silence smothers her. She wishes he would say something and does her best to keep silence, hoping he'll fill it. But the shroud lasts right up to the moment when they turn off the side street beside the Recruiting Station and onto the main avenue. "'Chelle, I know that -"

"What's that?" She cuts him off, wishing too late that she'd kept quiet, but she'd been surprised. Now she must turn her attention to what had attracted it as she pulls to a stop at the curb in front of the 'storefront' office.

In front of the Recruiting Station is a very tall object covered with a white cloth that reaches to the cement and flutters in the breeze. It leans propped upright against the metal grill of the security gate.

"I don't know," Jimmy admits as they get out of the car. The Avenue is silent, no passing cars disturb the quiet at 2:30 in the morning.

Approaching the white-sheeted object, they find it to be over seven feet tall. It comes down from a point to, at a height of over six feet, reach a width of nearly five feet before the cloth hangs straight down, the ends swaying in the mild warm breeze. It's not flat, but wide with an odd bulge.

It's wedged into the grill of the security gate hard enough to bend upward the horizontal bar it presses against. Looking about, the pair sees no one on the street but themselves.

Jimmy doesn't like this at all. Reaching down, he lifts the bottom of the sheet high enough to find blue/purple bare feet dangling below it. "Oh Hell!"

He drops the material, which upsets the delicate balance of the sheet. It's held in place by only a few fibers and the entire covering falls away.

x

The black haired girl hangs nailed by long spikes to the cross beam, head bowed forward in death. Lines of dried blood streak down her face and neck to varying lengths on her bare chest and stomach. Her feet hang an inch above the cement. There's a deep wound in the right side of her torso, but though it had bled copiously there's no vast wash of blood, though a thick gory trail runs past her hip and down her right leg. Her body is striped with the same crisscrossing scourging which Christina Dumas had suffered.

The scourge tore the skin from her flesh in agonizing red furrows. Black spikes are driven through the young woman's wrists into the wood, blood ran down her arms, her weight bourn upon these perversions.

There are far worse wounds, gory testimony to the savagery of her torture, so sickening not even Palmer, with his long experience, can bear to look upon for very long. It's worse than he'd seen on Dumas. The bites are deeper, bloodier, her left nipple...

It's been a very long time since he's seen a person so brutalized, and prays it will be longer before he sees such horror again.

x

Michelle turns away, flips out her cell phone, hits a speed dial combination. She waits, her back to the girl, repulsed, hearing the buzzing in her ear. Then; "Sir, it's Michelle Lee. I'm outside the Recruiting Station where Lt. Christina Dumas used to work. Yes, I know, sir. Yes, I know, sir. Sir, there's a _body _here, a young woman. Naked ... gashes in her head ... wound in her side. Yes, sir." She glances back and wishes she hadn't. "Sir, she's been _crucified_."

x

A few moments later she snaps her phone closed. "Get out of here," she commands.

Jimmy turns to her, unable to believe her command or her tone. "Huh?"

"Please, darling, just start walking and don't turn around until you get Doctor Mallard's call - and then wait a while and take a bus or something. I have to secure the scene. They're on their way. I don't know when they'll get here, but I can explain my being here. I can't explain _you._"

He can't argue with her. Much as it galls him, he can't keep the secret of their relationship if NCIS rolls up and finds him here. "I'll see you later," he promises. Galling as it is to turn his back upon a Crime Scene, no matter how temporarily, he walks away.

But he'll be back.


	10. A New Nightmare

Chapter Ten  
A New Nightmare

When the five Investigators arrive in four separate vehicles, Gibbs having picked up Ducky much to the older man's chagrin, they inspect the deceased, regret at the nude, black haired woman's death tinged with the realization they deal now with a gruesome serial murderer.

The woman, little more than a girl to him, perhaps twenty years old, hangs naked, her body displayed almost obscenely.

Gibbs notes parenthetically, as he sends McGee to cordon off the end of the block with yellow 'Crime Scene' tape, that though he knew McGee and Ziva had arrived together this morning and had departed in McGee's car, they now arrive separately and, though McGee greets Ziva - who arrived by cab at the far interesction - she says not a word to him, not acknowledging his existence, let alone his presence. When he had called them, each had been awake and alert despite the very late hour. It will be something to learn more about - later.

Right now, he's interested in the only witness to the horror before them.

"Tell me about it, Lee," Gibbs directs curtly when he removes her a few feet out of the others' hearing.

"Sir, I rolled up at 0227, 28 minutes ago. The cross was as you see it, except that it was covered with that white sheet." She hadn't touched it after it had fallen to the ground to bunch at the girl's feet. "I looked under it, saw her feet and the sheet fell off. I think it was set up to hang barely secured. The first strong breeze or touch would be enough to dislodge it. I saw she was already dead, called you and secured the scene as best I could."

Ropes, little more than string, extend from the gates of the storefronts of each adjoining business to join on the door handle of her car, the only vehicle for yards about before the Agents arrived, to form a protective triangle. "There was no pedestrian or vehicular traffic during the time I waited. I didn't see anyone before I discovered the body."

"Well done, Lee." She'd followed proper procedure, he grants that, neither too much nor too little. He's interested in why she's here, but that can wait. "Where did you touch the cloth?"

"Er, lower middle, sir."

"Okay." He makes a note of this in his pad.

"Sir, may I inquire why?"

"Exclusionary fingerprints. When Abby raises them, we want to exclude your prints from the suspect list."

"Yes, sir," she says, doing her typically bad job of hiding apprehension.

x

"Anything wrong, Lee?"

"No, sir." She forces herself to look high up into his eyes and sees her doom. She already knows her eyes, ever her worst features, have given her away. "Sir, I ..."

"Yes?"

She looks around nervously; the other Agents and Ducky pursue their investigations of the corpse and scene. She pitches her voice very low. "Sir, I'd like to amend my report."

"I expect so. Go ahead."

His words are more than enough to tell her he's caught her. She prays it is not on too many things. "I was out on a date tonight when we found this. My ... boyfriend was the one who raised the cloth, saw her feet. I called it in."

He only nods, and not much of that.

She knows his opinion of her has gone down a notch - or several. She doesn't mind, as long as she can get to Abby in time to convince her to withhold the identity of her 'boyfriend'. She hadn't gotten off on a good start with the scientist, their relationship thus far can be described, at the very best, as 'rocky'. But she'll do anything, make any concession - reasonable or not - if Sciuto will just keep her secret. She'll ask her to, she'll even beg her to, she decides. With something as important as this, she realizes she's not above a bit of begging.

"Where is he now?" Gibbs' words bring hrer back to the moment and she wonders what her face has given away while she was worrying.

'Stick to the truth,' she tells herself. 'He sees through lies the way I see through glass.' She knows she hadn't succeeded when she'd told him the biggest lie of her career; his final words to her at the conclusion of that turbulent case had shown her that explicitly. "I sent him away, sir. This was an NCIS Field Investigator matter." There; truth to the letter.

"Call him back," Gibbs directs.

"Sir?" She tries to hide her apprehension and feels her face go white. She wants to scream. _Why _has she never mastered keeping her emotions, her thoughts, off her face? If she obeys this order, and she must, their secret is destroyed.

"You don't expect Ducky to handle this alone, do you?" he asks her before returning to the team.

Michelle stares at his back, feeling her world teeter out of control. Her fingers feel numb as she pulls her cell phone out of her purse.

x

"What can you tell me, Duck?"

"No more late night calls to enter the LeMans," the man says testily, kneeling on one knee at the woman's right to probe the wide incision in her side. This is the third time Gibbs has tested his nerve.

Gibbs just manages to hold his serious expression. Around Ducky, that's sometimes the true challenge. "I mean about the body."

Ducky squints at the first bright camera flash and tries to angle his head to keep it turned from Ziva, but she arcs the hemisphere about the crucified woman. "Well, the cause of the young lady's death, despite the obvious trauma inflicted upon her person which show a savagery and brutality Lt. Dumas had been spared, probably by her early demise, is neither the deep gash in her side, the wounds to her wrists, the scores of bite marks that have all but severed a part of her nor the scourging of her body, intensely painful though all these undoubtedly were. Neither did she die of a heart attack." He stands up, ignoring Gibbs' expression over his massive sentence. Just let him get on a roll. "This wound, which is eight inches deep and four and one quarter inches wide, was definitely made postmortem. There is too little bleeding; her blood had already begun to settle in her legs and feet, as you can see."

"Then how did she die?"

"Why, the way all victims of this morbid form of execution are supposed to die: she suffocated."

"Suffocated?" Looking at the obvious wounds, it would not have been his first conclusion.

The bright flashes of light punctuate the horror.

x

"Oh yes. Until the Emperor Constantine the Great banned this barbaric practice in 337 in reverence for Jesus Christ, the condemned was tied or, in more serious cases, nailed to the cross as this young woman was. Contrary to appearances, it was not exposure or thirst and hunger that killed the victim, it was suffocation." He turns to the young woman; he'll still address Jethro but he'll do the lady the courtesy of looking at her while speaking of her horrid and undoubtedly painful death.

"Pressure from her weight compressed her lungs until she was unable to draw in enough breath to survive. Frequently, the victim's feet were also nailed or tied, either to the upright or to a small platform, ostensively to provide some relief. The condemned could push him- or herself up to relieve the pressure on the lungs enough to take a few breaths. Actually, that was an additional, rather sadistic form of torture as it only served to prolong it, apparently providing the victim with some mercy but actually drawing out and prolonging his or her death.

"Someone condemned to such a fate could last for hours, or even days, but it was a sentence with no hope."

"How long do you suppose she lasted?"

"Well, she did not have the opportunity to relieve herself of the pressure that was killing her, but only in the grossest sense could you say her death was quick. I'd have to get her to the morgue to determine her lung capacity, but at a guess I would say she survived for approximately an hour or two."

"Nailed to a 2 by 4 until she suffocated."

"Now you know why this particular form of execution was ultimately banned. It was not unknown for bodies to remain on the cross, as a warning to witnesses and a lesson to other potential malefactors, until they decomposed. History recounts one particularly gruesome mass execution, where it is said that the stench could be smelled for miles."

x

"I thought," DiNozzo opines, "that the nails would go through the hands. That is, if he's trying to imitate Christ's crucifixion."

"Oh, not at all, my boy, not at all. No, the spikes were driven through the wrists," he points to the painful wounds on the woman's arms, "between the ulna and radius, and the weight of the body bourn upon the carpal bones. The depiction in the works of the old Masters, who painted the nails in the palms, is inspired by a translation by Biblical scholars of the word '_cheir_' into 'hand', the 'hand' in that time referring to everything up to and including the forward half of the forearm. Therefore, when Christ said to Thomas 'put your finger into the marks in my hand', he really meant what today we would specify as 'wrist'." He touches the spot on his own wrist for emphasis, not wanting to use the unfortunate young lady as a demonstration model. He also doesn't want to look to Ziva who has again arced behind him, ever closer with each pass until soon he'd have to withdraw.

He does so now.

"This is also born out in a passage of the Acts of the Apostles," he continues the lecture, "which depicts the 'escape' of Peter from prison, wherein it tells of the chains falling from Peter's hands. They would certainly have been secured to his forearms.

"Were the spikes driven between the phalanges, the long thin bones that extend from metacarpals to fingertips, they would tear through the flesh and the body would fall from the cross. Admittedly, I am sure there were multitudes of people who prayed their executioners had such a poor knowledge of anatomy; a torn hand being preferable to death."

"Ducky?"

"Yes?"

"I'd rather not be here at rush hour."

Ducky looks to the body hanging beside them. "Indeed."

x

Tony turns back to his investigation, having learned more than he'd really wanted to know, but Gibbs halts him. "Where was Jordan tonight?" he asks, referring to the Saint Mary the Virgin handyman.

"It was about 6:00 when you assigned me, but I didn't manage to track him down at a bar a few blocks from his house until after 8:00. I followed him to his home; he got in about 9:20 and never left until I was pulled off to come here. I left Robins to continue surveillance, but the Jordans seem to have gone to bed about 11:30. Since then, nothing."

"Duck, how long do you figure this thing's been standing here?"

"Well, she has been dead for a considerably longer time, and since there was nothing about this site to draw attention to it until this sheet was removed, I would say at this point it could have been put here anytime after dark."

Gibbs turns to McGee. "Get his DNA records to Abby. Have her put a priority on this."

"Boss, Abby's asleep by n–" He withers under Gibbs' glare. "I can wake her."

"You do that."

x

It's at this moment that Jimmy Palmer walks up from the far corner behind them. Gibbs is the only one who notices that he and Michelle do not look at one another. "I was out when I got the call, Doctor," he reports, joining his mentor. "I took the bus, which let me off a few blocks away."

"That's all right, my boy. We all have lives outside of NCIS."

Jimmy regards the young woman hanging before them. "Wow. You think it's a message?"

"Oh, it's a message, all right." Gibbs says, grimly pleased by the man's astuteness. Of course, he's had nearly an hour to consider it. "This guy finishes what he starts."

They have no doubt that this would have also have been the fate of Christina Dumas had her heart not given out before her killer could complete his gory task.

"Don't worry, my dear," Ducky tells the woman softly. "We shall catch the one who did this to you."

x

"Talk to me, Ziva." The woman had been taking scores of pictures, the flash brightening the scene over and over again like a contained lightning storm.

"Not a lot to say," she turns from the nude girl. "No tattoos or distinguishing marks, at least not in front and certainly no ID." She glances about as though to confirm this.

x

Ziva reflects that Abby Sciuto's most impressive 'embellishment' is behind her. The bloody wounds that stripe this woman's body in every direction, as well as the lines of blood upon her face from the incised wounds encircling her head, bear witness to the brutality of her ordeal.

"The bite marks that cover her breasts match those of Dumas' killer," Ziva continues, "at least enough to convince me." There will be precise measurements and comparisons taken later. No one is inclined, considering the vicious damage inflicted on Christina Dumas' genitalia, to check too closely at this time. At least, no one wants to be first.

Gibbs doesn't blame them. He doesn't want to look either.

x

"The wood is dogwood," McGee points out. Ziva returns to her examination on the other side of the body. Gibbs can't fail to notice she walks a wide berth around McGee to do so.

"And that's significant because?"

McGee looks at the diminutive young woman, her long black hair fluttering in the breeze. He judges her height at five feet. "Well, boss, dogwood is a very weak kind of wood, not all _that _much better than balsa. You or I would have snapped a beam this size in half."

"I know that, McGee. I'm waiting for you to tell me what I _don__'__t _know"

"Legend says dogwood is so weak _because_ it's the kind that Christ was crucified upon."

"I am sure your _friend _has filled you in on that," Ziva bites.

McGee glances at her, says nothing and focuses on Gibbs alone. "God supposedly said 'because you have done this, you shall never again be forced to bear such a burden'."

It's obvious to the agents that the choice of wood wasn't random. "Too bad it's only a legend."

x

The Medical Examiner van arrives, driven by Agent Tom Samaren. Then begins the task of removing the woman's body from the cross without disturbing the physical evidence of body, cross or scene. This, a more complex and detailed duty than it seems, takes a half hour to accomplish. It's nearly 3:45 and soon pedestrians will track over the scene. Gibbs pulls out his cell phone, summons the night shift Agents who, with Samaran, will secure the area. Then he surveys his team, the freshest of whom had started his or her shift over eighteen hours ago. "Go home."

The bleary-eyed looks of surprise that greet this order tell him he's made the right decision. "None of you are going to be at your peaks by morning, let alone ready to put in a full day and not miss anything. Sleep on what you've seen and be ready to work."

He gets no argument.


	11. Torment

Chapter Eleven  
Torment

When the alarm beside her bed blares at her at 7:00 Siobhan O'Mallory sighs deeply, reaches out her right hand and slaps the button. She's been awake all night after Timmy had been called away, had tried her best to sleep, but everything failed.

The tea at 3:25 hadn't helped. The hot shower at 4:15 had done nothing more than relax her muscles, but had granted no sleep. The hot milk at 5:40 hadn't relaxed her. The practiced clearing of her mind of everything except the pillow under her head hadn't worked. Finally, with her last memory being of the clock face at what looked to her exhaustion blurred eyes to read 6:55, she'd pulled off her glasses and dozed off.

She forces herself to sit up, brings her legs off the bed and sighs in exhaustion. The room is a haze, she can only tell by familiarity where everything is; if not for that she'd be lost, blind yet sighted. This morning she'd be willing to lose herself in the blurred wall that presses in on her eyes.

Blessing herself, her arm feeling like it weighs double its normal weight, she doesn't use her usual morning prayers or those appropriate to the Season or day, substituting just one simple, heartfelt plea: 'God, _please_ help me to get through this day.'

Sitting on the edge of the Queen sized bed, normally so much room, today the entire room feels small and smothering. Utterly wretched, she can't escape the memories that kept her awake all night. Tina is _dead_. A sadistic maniac raped and murdered her, tortured her until her weak heart ruptured; then he'd come to her and _c__onfessed_ - knowing she couldn't say a word about what she had been told.

Added to the grief and guilt of all this, she'd been so weak, so broken, that she'd called upon her oldest friend for help, dragged him out of his bed and away from his 'companion'. She knows Timmy's not married; so his 'companion' was some woman special to him and she had interrupted – she doesn't want to imagine what.

Then he'd insisted upon coming to help her - as she had wanted and needed and had desperately prayed for - and as mortified as she was by that display of weakness, what had followed was infinitely worse. She had wanted to talk - rationally - to him and instead had broken, sobbing in his arms like a baby.

She'd been utterly humiliated and he'd taken it in stride, as though he had women sobbing on his shoulder every week.

Well, with his heart maybe he does.

But no, that's not true. He had _not_ 'taken it in stride'. He'd been just what she'd needed, strength when hers was gone. She was grateful for his strength and for his love and caring, almost as much as she was utterly _humiliated_!

x

Now, in the light of day, she just hopes she can find the strength to endure the trials before her - so quaint a phrase for the horrors of real life. She wants to get through the day, but knows that only through prayer can she make it.

Reaching for her glasses, finding them by habit more than touch, she brings the room back into reality. The mass of fog leaps into solidarity, suddenly there are angles, surfaces and colors, rather than a single fog of colors without reference. She pushes her protesting body off the bed, trying not to give in to the urge to get back in. She stands up and steps to the foot of the bed, to the full length mirror at her right to see what she has to work with.

When she sees her nude body she wishes she'd left the glasses off. Showering after four A.M. and then climbing into bed, longing for elusive sleep, has left her long red hair an utterly disheveled riot while her restless turnings have pressed the creases of the thin summer sheet into a map of lines crisscrossing her body.

She _refuses _to think of what she had been told about the scourging of her friend.

x

Admittedly 'what she has to work with' isn't a _bad_ body, though this morning she couldn't prove that. The years since Timmy had known her as a wild cheerleader, not all _that _long ago, had been good to her. Granted a Priest isn't supposed to be concerned with the flesh, but she works out – semi-regularly – and she's been careful to keep herself in good condition. She doubts she can do a 'split' without considerably more preparation than she used to need, and throwing herself off the top of a human pyramid is out of the question, but on the whole….

She slams the narcissistic indulgence to a halt as the reality of the day attacks her. In addition to all her other duties, such as Morning Prayer, it's her 'turn' again to hear such confessions as may come, but atop all this there's the extra need to plan Tina's funeral.

Grabbing a brush from the table beside her, always kept ready for final touch-up before walking out the door, she restrains herself from yanking it sharply through her riotous locks. She knows her only hope is to start over. No fan of early morning pain, she determines to restrain her emotions today, to not let them get out of control again.

And one thing she especially decides: she'd been unable to contain herself last night but that's the _last_ time she's going to _cry_.

xxx

When Gibbs walks into the Forensics lab at 0930, Abby Sciuto, the only one who hadn't had a late night - though quite an early morning - greets him with a broad smile. Its intensity is equal parts for him and for the large red and white plastic container of 'Caf-Pow!' he hands her.

"Thank you," she exclaims, taking the cup and an immediate large gulp. He reaches past and grasps her white lab coat, pulls it wide, inspecting her. Rather than a shockingly revealing bustier and micro-shorts, she wears a pleated black and red 'Catholic Schoolgirl' somewhat-less-than-miniskirt and a black tee-shirt which proclaims in bold white letters 'If I'm not _Screaming_, you're doing it wrong.'

"Oh, be still my heart, do I get a strip search?" she asks with faux hopefulness.

"Just checking." He can't say he's thrilled with this outfit either, but at least it only teases rather than displays.

"I wouldn't wear the bustier, not after yesterday," she assures him.

"Good."

"I'd wear something _scandalous_ instead."

x

This is a conversation he does _not_ want to pursue, closing her coat sharply. Her irrepressible smile reminds him of how little point there is in trying to repress her. "At least the air conditioner's working." The call he'd put into Maintenance after last evening had lit such a fire under them that they dared not fail. The lab is cool. Looking at this outfit, he would wish for 'Arctic'. "What have you got?"

"Couldn't you see that for yourself?"

At his glares she instantly switches from femme fatale tease to Forensic Scientist. It's sometimes unnerving to watch her at the moment of transition. Not for the first time does he wonder if she has some mental switch that she throws, switching lives in an instant. "The wood was smooth enough to be a great source of fingerprints. Whether he didn't care or cared more for what he was doing to her, I got some great prints, both finger and full hand. Those spikes have such small surfaces there's little useful that can be obtained, the prints overlap too much. I can't get a single match that'll hold up in court, but I don't really need it.

"Dental impressions, if you can call them that, well, I got a lot. I almost lost my breakfast when I saw what he did to her nipple and between her legs..." Coming from Abby, who revels in the 'hinkiest' side of human existence, that tells him too much. "But like I said yesterday I doubt this guy ever _went _to a dentist. Still," she indicates one of her computers, "we live in hope."

"Ducky found some traces on her leg," she continues. "Our guy's either becoming more careless, thinks he's invincible or doesn't give a damn; but it looks like the pervert was having a good time while she was suffocating. I got excellent DNA which I'm cloning now. Give me until this evening for a decent PCR. If he's in the system _I'll_ nail that bastard to a cross."

"How does it match up with Mark Jordan's?"

"As soon as I know, you'll get my invitation to his crucifixion."

x

He's not surprised by her passion. From what he's seen, this animal, whether it turns out to be their prime suspect or not, needs to be put down - now.

"What else did you find?"

"Jimmy just brought me some specimens from her brain and lungs. I'd say she was smothered at least twice, perhaps a couple of hours apart. He'll be able to tell you more detail after his autopsy."

"Not after. That's my next stop."

"I know; you're getting predictable."

"I hope not. Any guess where the wood comes from?"

"Sorry, Gibbs, no guesses." Well, he'll let that wait on more tests. She's been at this for only two hours. "A _certainty_!" she announces triumphantly. "Can I get a drum roll?" She gets a hard look instead. "Israel."

"Come on."

"I swear, Gibbs," she assures him. "Soil is very distinctive, transmits properties to the wood. This guy's going for the real thing and probably sparing no expense."

That is just the kind he loves, a perp who'll go to such lengths for authenticity that he'll leave a paper trail a blind man could follow - to say nothing of McGee and his infernal machine.

He doesn't believe a word of it.

xxx

Father George Donaldson leaves the Rectory via the rear door which admits him into the corridor of offices and vesting rooms, turns immediately to his left and opens the Sacristy door. This sanctum, providing access to the Sanctuary through a door at the opposite corner of the rectangular room, is the exclusive province of the Priests, Servers and Altar Guild. Inside this white room, so decorated as to provide an venue suitable for prayer and preparation, he finds his Curate standing before the closet that makes up the far wall.

She stands silent, her hand touching one of the long white Albs within. The closet is already stocked with the white vestments they'll wear for the upcoming Mass of the Resurrection scheduled for Wednesday, but it's not her own attire that holds her focus.

He knows she heard him enter, but she doesn't look at him. Her hand rests upon one of the long white Albs that he knows will only be worn one more time, and on the twelve foot long white cotton cord hanging from its shoulders. It drapes down the back of the Alb so that the knotted ends hang precisely to the white hem. Tina has always been very precise in the care of all her vestments.

"She made me promise that, when she died, she'd be buried in it over her uniform, if she stayed in the Marines that long," Siobhan says softly, her brogue thick with restrained emotion. "I told her she might not be in uniform by then and that she'd wear out plenty of vestments by the time she grew old."

Donaldson leans against the cabinets and sink at his left, letting her finish, his silence compelling her words.

"I spoke to Harry and Emma, they're going to be in on the 1:00 flight." She never takes her gaze off the vestment. "I asked Miguel to meet them at the airport." Her hand drops from touching the cloth. "I also called Melanie, asked if she could come in. There's so much to prepare and we're going to be short-handed." Her tone is quite, lifeless. "Father Meyer from the Bishop's office called, word is getting out. There should be quite a large delegation from the Diocese, not counting who the Marines will send on Wednesday. They'll have an Honor Guard during all the time she's at the Parlor, and at the grave on Wednesday; full Marine Honors."

x

It gradually comes to her that she's alone in this conversation. She turns, sees him leaning next to the sink, his arms folded. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"I'm waiting."

"For what?" She can't understand him.

"For you to finish telling me what I already know and to start telling me something I don't."

She shrugs helplessly. "Sorry, of course you know all this, I…."

"Siobhan," there is neither reprimand nor impatience in his tone, "I won't ask you how you feel; that's very obvious. Did you get _any_ sleep last night?"

"Almost."

"You're exhausted," he tells her definitely.

"What makes you say that?" She'd thought she had been covering well enough.

"You're blinking."

"Huh?" Now he has her attention.

"You have one particular habit: when you're tired you blink - a _lot_. You probably don't even realize it, but the more tired you are the more and faster you blink." She forces her eyes to stay open. "Doesn't work like that." She's annoyed to find that as soon as she relaxes she blinks rapidly six times in succession.

"How long have you been keeping 'tabs' on me?"

"Two years."

That's all the time she's been here. "And you mention it now?"

"It was never significant until now. What kept you up?" As if he has to ask.

"Making an_ ass_ of myself."

Normally George would inquire further, offer to help, but when the answer is delivered with such intense self-recrimination he decides to let it go. "But how are you?"

x

She gestures even more helplessly. "Fractured. Split in two. The Womanpriest I've been for years was never this bad. She knew where she stood. She was strong. Now the _Priest_ prays for and finds comfort in the Resurrection - that Tina has returned to God and rejoices for her for it - and she does her duty ..." she sighs sadly, her words very careful against powerful emotion, "but the woman very much misses her best friend."

She can no longer meet his eyes, the guilt too heavy to bear. "And the worst part is; I really feel like I've _betrayed _her. I _forgave_ her murderer, granted Absolution to a _monster _and tied my own hands. Even if I knew who it was, even if he came back today, there's nothing I can do."

He doesn't say anything.

"I keep telling myself I should be smarter, that I should find something I could tell those Agents that would help them to catch him. But I can't think of anything that won't violate Seal."

She turns away, back toward the white vestments. "I know there's nothing I can do, but I feel like I'm _betraying _her, betraying her memory. Sometimes I think I should–."

"Don't say it, Siobhan!" he stops her with force, makes her turn around. "I know what's in your heart, I would say it myself; but before you consider violating one of the founding principles of the Church I want you to ask yourself something."

She slumps as though in defeat. "What?"

"Would Tina want this over - and I do believe justice ultimately will prevail, even if it takes time - at the cost of your _actually_ betraying what you have sworn before God to uphold?"

She's silent for a long time, turns away and then back to him. "You always seem–" She can't go on, the answer helping her conflicted emotions not at all.

x

She looks about the Sacristy, not wanting to meet his eyes any longer, not wanting him to be able to see how near a thing it had been. "It's nearly 10; I've got to get ready for Confession."

"I'll take it, you've been through enough."

She shakes her head, grateful for the offer. "You had your hour yesterday. We're both alike, neither of us will shirk duty. You have the Noon Mass. I'd like nothing more than to get an early nap - maybe I can stretch out on the couch in the Rectory."

"Take the bed, the couch is lumpy."

There was a day - just two ago - when she might have teased him about trying to get her into his bed. Now she doesn't feel up to it.

"I didn't sleep at all last night. But I'll do Evening Prayer."

"Okay." The dividing of duties has always been that simple, and he's willing to do anything he can to accommodate his overstressed partner.

"Besides, maybe I'll get lucky and no one will come. I can use an hour's quiet."

He nods, certain is an understatement. She goes toward the door leading out to the Epistle side of the Sanctuary, right from the congregation's view, but then stops on the top of two steps, hand upon the carved wooden door. "George?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. I think I almost would have done it."

"I can't hear a word you're saying."

xxx

Dr. 'Ducky' Mallard looks back over his shoulder when he hears the glass and metal doors slide open, not a bit surprised to see his old friend and taskmaster stride in. He turns his attention back to the unfortunate woman on the table before him. "Good morning, Jethro," he calls back, his voice is slightly distorted by the clear plastic shield covering his face, "though I use the appellation 'good' quite loosely indeed."

Before him, the young woman's chest is spread by a 'Y' shaped incision that lays her internal organs bare to the world, the upper fold coming to rest upon her chin. The powerful mirrored light above her body leaves very few shadows. Gibbs can see the damage the spikes driven through her wrists had wrought upon her as she'd hung from them. He judges her to be no more than five feet tall, her weight little greater than a hundred pounds, but still the damage bears mute testimony to her pain.

Perhaps Gibbs least favorite thing is the fact that her scalp and black hair have been peeled back from her head, the top of her skull removed to expose the convoluted surface of her brain. While the blood that had lined her face is long gone, this is hardly an improvement.

"What can you tell me?" he asks, really growing to hate that oft-repeated question.

x

There are days when Ducky doesn't care for it either, and he realizes those days are becoming very frequent. "I can tell you about the young lady's – by the way, do you have a name yet?"

"No. DiNozzo's checking 'Missing Person' records."

"Well, her lungs and brain analyses are proving very telling indeed. For instance," he points to that vital organ, "indications are that she was suffocated at least _twice_ during her ordeal. The report I received from Abby indicates buildup of lactic acid and CO2 in the brain as her body struggled for oxygen. This was easy to determine even without her analysis. I should say the interval between the two incidents is at least several hours."

"Strangled?" He can see none on her neck. She had suffocated on the cross, what about the first time?

"Suffocated each time, I should say. I've sent some of her lung tissue to Abby's lab; she may be able to tell us what was used. Also, when the young lady was put upon that despicable cross, her weight served to exert pressure upon her lungs, as I explained last night. This caused her to hyperventilate extensively as her body strained to draw in oxygen. Exhalation would be facilitated by simply relaxing. This forceful intake of air would result in small airborne particles becoming trapped in her lungs.

"I also sent samples of her brain tissue. Abby found high levels of carbon dioxide from two separate suffocations, spaced several hours apart, in her brain tissue, the initial infusion of dioxide quite a high and sudden concentration. Not finding any corresponding wounds or pressure about the throat, I would theorize that something was placed over her nose and mouth to stop her from breathing. Plastic comes readily to mind. Only an immediate and extreme asphyxiation would cause such concentrations.

"This deep wound in her side did not, as I also indicated last evening, bleed much and is almost certainly postmortem. All her other wounds were para-mortem."

x

"The spikes that went through her wrists are almost certainly not commercial, Abby can tell you more, but from my observation they seem to be home made.

"There are also indications," he indicates her wounded wrists, "that she was tied."

"Like Dumas was?"

"No. _Her_ wrists were bound together, presumably to keep her from defending herself as a Marine would. Our new young lady's wounds show the pressure was on the inner sides of the wrists. I should judge it was to hold her in place while the spikes were driven into her flesh. Those ropes had been removed, that's clear from the pressure exerted upon her wound; the left spike actually rubbed against her left wrist bones enough to cause transference of material between spike and bone. I also found a fiber imbedded into her left wrist that has also gone up to Abby."

He looks at the clock. "That reminds me, I sent Mr. Palmer up with the second samples nearly thirty-five minutes ago. I wonder what could be keeping the lad."

"He's not with Abby."

"I swear, that young man is growing more invisible by the week."


	12. Shattered Oath

Chapter Twelve  
Shattered Oath

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory enters the Confessional for her hour at precisely 10:00, unable to recall the last time she had been so reluctant to do so. The last 48 hours have been a draining ordeal. Dealing with Tina's death has been bad enough, but there are the thousand additional concerns to deal with - not the least of which is consoling family and friends. She must shove her own grief into the background, to deal with the chaotic emotions of so many people who need - who _need_ - her.

But this tiny pair of booths is the worst, for it was in here that she'd had her friend's killer and hadn't known it. And she can do nothing to help Tina; can't tell anything she knows to the police or to the Federal Agents investigating the case - not even to Timmy. Despite all the trust she has in him, the Seal of the Confessional is absolute. She can give him, give them, no clues at all that might in any way lead to the identity of the penitent; of the murderer.

George had offered to take this hour and she wishes now that she'd accepted. Yesterday had been his day, he was willing to take the duty today but she'd declined. She doesn't want to be here, but it's her duty and she won't shirk it. For the posted hour she'll be here to help any penitent who seeks absolution, who seeks her solace. Frequently no one would come and she would pass the quiet hour in reading and contemplation, but someone might come and her duty is to be here.

The more George had offered yesterday to relieve her of her every-other-day turn until she could get back 'on an even keel', the more her 'mulish Irish stubbornness' (her words, not his) had risen up. But the fact is that she needs this hour. She has to clear her soul of the taint this place has acquired for her so she can–

The door to the booth beside hers opens and closes and O'Mallory tries to - is forced to - put her thoughts and her feelings away so she can concentrate upon the moment and her reason for being here.

x

She takes off her glasses, the better to focus her mind without her eyes for she can see absolutely nothing but a dimly lit fog, she closes her book upon her lap and straightens the purple stole so it lies along her legs and over her knees toward the floor. She turns her attention to the unrevealing screen beside her and the darkness beyond. "The Lord be in your heart and upon your lips that you may truly and humbly confess your sins; in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Hear the Word of God to all who truly turn to him; If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." The words slip off her tongue, her focus on trying to put the last time out of her memory.

She realizes she's focusing too hard on this, not enough on the person beside her, and forces herself to shut up.

"Bless me, Mother, for I have sinned." The voice coming through the screen is male, young – she stops herself - this is totally inappropriate. Penitents are completely anonymous. Even a friend she's known for years and whose voice she's intimately familiar with is a stranger when she's in here. She puts away this attempt at awareness - she is likely never to hear that rasping voice again - and offers her own silent prayer for forgiveness.

"My last confession was ..." The voice pauses in thought - too long.

"Time isn't relevant," she assures him. "Simply say what is in your heart and, if you are truly repentant of your sins, our Lord will forgive you for them."

"Even the ones I can't remember? Even the ones I'm too ashamed to admit?"

x

How many times has she answered these questions? It seems so many she can barely count them. "Yes, my son, if you are truly sorry for them."

"Oh, I am - I am. I just don't know if I can find the words."

"I do not need details. Simply the true confession and repentance of your sins,"

"Well, Mother, there's this girl..."

'Isn't there always?' She thinks and then sharply rebukes herself for this thought. 'Perhaps George was right', she admits; she's not ready to be here. If she can't separate her feelings from her duty, then she doesn't belong in this booth today.

Sharply curtailing her thoughts, she says into the long pause; "Go on." She mentally forces herself to focus.

He begins to tell her his faults and they're a series of minor, venial violations and offences; anger, envy, lust - that is the closest he comes to a mention of 'this girl' - but the sum of his litany isn't a massive admission of Earth-shattering guilt, only what one could expect of a young Christian male.

She finds it a relief.

x

"Is that all?" she asks at the conclusion.

"I think so; yes."

She tries to draw him out. "You began with a mention of a girl. Do you want to talk about this?"

"Well, I'd really rather not. You know her and it's, well, embarrassing. I was with her for a while, but it's over. We're not going to see each other again. I kind of hurt her feelings and I'm sorry, I really am. I just think it should stay over between us and I'm sure she'd feel the same way if you were to ask her."

"I can't do that."

"I know. But I'm feeling this really deep guilt and I'm sorry. I just want to move ahead with a clear conscience and put all this behind me."

"Very well," she senses that he is repentant of whatever hurt he's caused and finds no valid reason to withhold absolution. She raises her hand toward the screen, though she can see neither. "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of His great mercy forgive you all your offences; and by His authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins; In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

"Amen," he whispers.

"Now there is rejoicing in Heaven, for you were lost and are found; you were dead and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go now in Peace; the Lord has put away all your sins."

"Thanks be to God," he replies.

"Now listen, though your sins are forgiven, I want you to try to make peace with this girl."

The voice coming through the screen changes in timbre to the hissing whisper that will haunt Siobhan's nightmares for the rest of her life. "I can't do that - she's dead too."

x

Siobhan feels her blood freeze. "You _bastard_!" she whispers. She hears the door next to hers open and she knows she can't endure this madness any longer. She gets up, allows the Book upon her lap to fall to the floor, jams her glasses onto her face and shoves the door to her cubicle.

It doesn't open. Surprised, she pushes harder. There is no lock, not even a doorknob, but the door is stuck tight. Angry, she shoves harder, puts her full weight against it but it doesn't move. "Hey!" she shoves again. "What are you doing? This is ridiculous. Let me out!"

She shoves as hard as she can, but the door doesn't move. She can't budge it. Even if he were holding his full weight against it, she should be able to move it a bit. She hits the door with her fist, leans heavily upon it. "Let me out!" she yells.

Angry, she slams her weight against it, using all her strength from shoulder to heels. The door doesn't budge.

Pounding on the door, yelling loudly for escape, she stops when she hears a voice outside. "Stop pushing," the female voice directs. A second later there's a sharp scrape, a loud reverberating clatter of metal on stone and the door swings smoothly open. Melanie Velez is on the other side.

"I was coming in when I heard you shouting." The black woman points at the metal bar on the marble floor. "That was braced against the pew. What's going on?"

Siobhan's breathless and shaking from the burst of adrenaline that had flooded her. "Inside - inside the office …" Siobhan stops, takes a deep breath, shaking violently, "there's a business card on my desk. It says 'NCIS' on it; Special Agent Timothy McGee. Call him and tell him I need him and his team here now."

"Is this about Tina?"

"_GO_!" she yells at the Minister, her voice reverberating through the Church. Melanie runs to complete her task. "And please send Father Donaldson out here!" she calls after her.

"Yes, Ma'am," the woman acknowledges, not even pausing at the Altar before hurrying through the door on the right and down the two steps into the Sacristy.

xxx

Donald Mallard enters Autopsy in a grim mood. He'd left Jimmy Palmer to finish the work on the woman now identified by Special Agent DiNozzo as Christine Night while he took a long overdue break from the pre-dawn autopsy, and when he returns he is surprised to see the younger man standing beside the refrigeration units, his hand upon one of the levers. This would not be unusual if he had just come upon the man after he had closed the door, but Palmer is standing motionless, looking at the closed silver door.

The truly unusual aspect of this is that it's not the unit wherein resides either Christina Dumas nor Christine Night. This unit, in fact, is empty and has been so more than a week.

Ducky vividly recalls who had last been interred in that cooler. Going up to his Assistant, he says softly "Mr. Palmer."

"What?"

Ducky is not pleased with how far this voice has come, even beyond how atypical it is for Palmer to address him so. "He is gone, Mr. Palmer. Gone and buried."

"I can still hear him," Jimmy says softly. "He's not gone." He pulls the handle, opens the drawer to the empty tray. "He'll never be gone."

Ducky looks closely at the man. "When is the last time you slept?"

"I haven't - not since..." he stares at the spot on the tray where George Franklin's face would be, his voice hushed, quivering with emotion he dares not express for fear of shattering. "'I swear by Apollo the physician," he can barely keep his whisper; his body trembling with emotion he dares not release, "and Aesculapius, and Health and All-heal," his words are barely heard whispers, tears he will not shed tearing at him, "and all the gods and goddesses that ... according to my ability and judgment..." he fights hard to keep the whispered words, to keep from breaking, "... I will … keep this Oath ... and this stipulation … that ... I will ... first ... do no harm'."

Jimmy has linked Hippocrates' 'Oath' with 'Epidemic'; a common mistake of the layman, but Ducky will certainly not correct him.

He knows the quietly crying man has made no mistake.

x

Jimmy manages to look up at his teacher, and Ducky's heart nearly breaks from the pain he sees. "I've ... looked forward ... to the day ..." he whispers, voice stolen by his efforts, "... when I will ... take that Oath ... and I've shattered it ... in the worst ... possible way..." He can no longer speak, battered to the last of his control.

"Could you," Ducky asks just as quietly a question he's asked several times already, "from across that room - in how much time?"

"Maybe a tenth ... of a second..." The words are a hollow whisper, ripped from a soul strangled by despair.

"Have saved Megan Wood's life if you had not fired?"

"_No_." The whisper comes from the depth of hell. He looks down again at the slab. "But I can't ..."

Donald Mallard reaches out, takes his friend's arm and, closing the door, guides him across the room and seats him at his desk. He hadn't talked overlong about this, waiting until the young man was ready. Crossing the room again, he activates the 'Biohazard' alert, a red light outside the glass and metal doors indicating they're locked. The outer hall is now almost dark, the red light casting a baleful glow. Returning to his desk, he reaches past the surprised young man and removes the telephone handset from the receiver, detaches the curled cord and lets it drop to the floor as he puts the handset onto the desk.

"But what if Agent Gibbs or someone needs us? They won't be able to get through."

Ducky turns the other chair about and brings it closer, fixing his friend with a firm look. "They," he sits down, they are nearly knee to knee, "can wait."

xxx

In the twenty minutes that pass before the narthex door opens to New York Avenue NW, Siobhan can't stop shaking. Even the combined efforts of George Donaldson and Melanie Velez aren't enough to ease her nerves. She sits in a pew near the Confessional, her partner beside her, knowing it is because of so many things that she's trembling. It's fear, anger, a desire to have this over and the madman who is plaguing them caught combined with an apprehensive remembrance that he had said she knows 'the girl'.

She looks back over her shoulder, watches Special Agent Gibbs lead his team into the Church and the Sexton has been requested to admit no others, she's vastly relieved to see her old friend Timmy is here.

Siobhan had asked Melanie Velez to remain. The young Minister is under no restrictions from giving her testimony of what she'd seen.

"I was coming in… I'd been called in to help today. I was on my way to the Sacristy when I heard Mother O'Mallory yelling and pounding on the Confessional door.

"That piece of metal," she points at the long bar lying upon the floor, "was braced between the door and the pew. I knocked it off and Mother O'Mallory sent me to call you, Agent McGee," she tells Gibbs.

The older man doesn't correct and embarrass her. "Did you see anyone else in the Church?"

"No, sir."

"The end of the bar was sawed off," the real McGee reports. "Looks like he planned this carefully."

"Prints and DNA."

x

Siobhan turns further in the pew and the movement of material against her leg below the end of her skirt makes her glance down to discover she's still wearing her purple stole. She'd been so distressed she had completely forgotten about removing it. It is, she realizes, a measure of the devastation that monster has forced her to suffer that she hadn't sent it back with Melanie to be properly put away. That omission stabs at her now, reminding her of his perversion of everything she holds sacred.

She pulls the stole off, kisses the middle of the purple band, folds it carefully, her movements slow and cautious. She hands the folded material to Donaldson, seated beside her. Only then can she allow herself to speak.

"Oh, he planned it," she confirms, fiery anger too long kept in check now broiling her. "He was in _there_," she points to the right room. Gibbs signals Tony, no words needed as the tall man steps to the booth door.

"He tricked me. He _played_ me! He _confessed_; but only after I gave him Absolution did he reveal the truth. He kept that part hidden." She's furious; this time she _knows_ why she is shaking.

"I thought you had a choice about giving pardon or not," DiNozzo says, turning back to her.

"Oh, he knows that _too_. We forgive the sins that are forgotten, or that are too embarrassing to admit to out loud, so long as they are repented of."

"So, he tricked you into Absolving him and bought your silence again," Gibbs concludes.

He's right. The bastard has 'bought' her silence - _again_. She can't tell them anything more. She can't even _ask_ if there was another victim, another girl.

Fortunately she doesn't have to.

x

"Siobhan," McGee says softly, his face displaying his heart. He doesn't want to say this - he has to. "We've found another body. Would you look at a picture and tell us if you know her?"

She nods, stands and comes out of the wooden pew, turns to Tim. He lets her take a deep breath, hold it for several seconds, prepare herself. He takes the picture out of his shirt pocket and hands it to her.

The raven-haired girl's face is cleaned of the streaks of dried blood though she lies pale upon the silver Autopsy table. The instant Siobhan sees her she gasps, her hand over her mouth as she goes white.

George Donaldson behind her and McGee before her grab her as she starts to collapse. She drops the picture as they ease her into the pew. Melanie Velez bends and picks up the photo from where it had landed face down. She turns it over and stares in disbelief. "Chrissie!" she breathes.

"You know her too?"

"Of _course_. We all do. She's in the Choir." She looks up at McGee. "She's…?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Oh God!"

"What happened to her?" Donaldson demands, supporting the pale and shaking O'Mallory. She's seated with him, trying to hold her control, but just to see her face is to know she's nearly past her limit.

"Everything that had happened to Lt. Dumas," Gibbs tells them, "but she was then nailed to a cross and hung until she suffocated. Then she was stabbed in her side and the cross with her on it was left propped in front of Dumas' Recruitment office."

O'Mallory had thought it good that she hadn't fainted, but again she feels battered nearly to oblivion. Velez's dark face pales and she teeters.

"Go," Donaldson tells her, reading her distress in her eyes. The younger woman runs toward the rear of the Church, turns right toward the Hall, desperate to reach the Ladies room in time.


	13. I Don't Have A Name!

Chapter Thirteen  
I Don't Have A Name!

DiNozzo, McGee and David begin a forensic and photographic sweep of the area, methodically testing everything from the interior of the Confessional and the metal bar upon the floor outward through the Church. It's a thorough and painstaking operation which will, in turn, be taken over by the Forensics team when they arrive. Meantime Gibbs accompanies the three clergy through the Sacristy to the office. O'Mallory and Velez sit in seats while Donaldson steps out of the room, returning a few moments later with four small glasses, two in each hand. They're half filled with red liquid, two of which he hands to the women, the third he offers to Gibbs. "Wine?" Gibbs asks.

"One thing you can always find in a Church. Not strong, but it will help."

"No, thank you." He sets it down near the women. Not only is he on duty, but they look like they will benefit from it more than he. Velez takes a drink from her glass, O'Mallory does not.

"Chrissie?" Gibbs asks Velez, expecting he'll get better answers from the lay woman.

"Chrissie Night," she answers in a shuddering voice.

That confirms, as if they truly needed to beyond the legal requirement, DiNozzo's earlier identification of the body. "When did any of you see her last?"

They all agree, she'd been there on Sunday, five days ago.

"Christina Dumas and Christine Night: scourged, crowns of thorns driven onto their heads, the latter crucified and then stabbed in her side."

"Oh, the symbolism is not lost on us - of that you may be sure, Agent Gibbs," Donaldson assures him tightly.

"Do any of you know anyone who may have wanted to hurt either, or both of them?" he asks Donaldson and Velez, pointedly not asking O'Mallory. He'd been down that road too often. Donaldson shakes his head.

"I don't know anyone," Velez admits.

"Did they confide in you?"

"Tina confided in me all the time, Agent Gibbs," O'Mallory tells him, her voice stronger than it had been in the church. "She never spoke of anyone bothering her."

"Would she complain?"

Siobhan considers. "I doubt it. She was a Marine."

Marines solve their own problems.

"Did she ever mention Mark Jordan?"

"No," she answers apprehensively, "what about Mark?"

"We're not sure yet." He doesn't want to compromise the integrity of the investigation, nor risk the man being alerted that he's a 'person of interest'. He'd jumped the gun recently when Megan Wood seemed too good a suspect in the murder of Michael Kane. He'll never do that again.

Gibbs is, in fact, still inclined to rule Jordan out as a suspect. O'Mallory had said he was working on the organ in the Choir loft when she had initially come out of the Confessional. She hadn't been clear about the interval between the unknown murderer leaving the Confessional and her doing so, saying she had taken 'several moments' to compose herself.

Gibbs has had a chance to review the scene again before they came back to the office and doubts Jordan could have gotten the nearly 100 feet to the back of the church, through the side door, up the stairs to the organ loft without hurrying and drawing attention to himself.

x

"Chrissie would come for help," Velez declares.

"Did she?"

"Not to me." They all agree, she'd gone to none of them.

"Who might she go to?"

"The Church has no tolerance for harassment," Donaldson declares. "There are annual programs in each Diocese; all Clergy and all Laity active with the Church are required to participate. Chrissie was - is - small, as you know. She's conscious of how most people tower over her. If she had a problem with someone, one of us would know. We'd treat it very seriously."

"So neither of them said anything at all about harassment, undue attention, anything?"

"There's always 'attention'," Donaldson reminds him. "Both Tina and Chrissie were - are - lovely young women, but if anyone crossed the line and we found out about it we would have absolutely no choice but to intervene. As I said, the Church has grown _very_ strict. You've noticed all our doors." He indicates the closed one and the diamond shaped window in it. There is no room, with the exception of the bathroom and the Rectory, that can't be viewed from the hallway.

"It's for our defense as well as for the security of others, and these are mandated changes. Nothing here, or in any Parish with which I am familiar, goes on 'behind closed doors'."

x

"Anyone have a problem with women being active in your Church, particularly those with - unfortunate names?"

"There are always problems with people who see women stepping into traditionally male roles," Siobhan says, trying unsuccessfully to hide her bitterness, "but this goes far beyond the usual response. Usually they just move in the Communion line to Father Donaldson's side, cut down on their pledges or simply leave."

x

This is getting nowhere, Gibbs decides. He'll have DiNozzo and McGee check out Night's residence, go over it with a fine tooth comb while David stays to interview more of the Parish staff and regulars, particularly in the related Nutrition Program.

In the meantime, he has another plan and tells O'Mallory: "I'd like you to come down to NCIS Headquarters; meet with a Profiler." She's about to protest but he cuts her off. "You won't reveal any secrets. We want your help to work out the kind of person who would do something like this and if it fits anyone in your congregation. Our Profiler can work up a psychological sketch of the kind of person we're looking for; you provide a name that matches it."

She considers. It _might_ not be breaking her vows. She'll talk to the Diocese about that first. "All right."

"I'll go," Donaldson offers, "you've been through enough. They can get the same answers from me."

She shakes her head. "No, this takes a woman's angle. Besides, I already _know_ who doesn't like us. While I'm there, I can give Chrissie the Last Rites."

He considers carefully. He shouldn't make her do this. In the past two days her nerves have been visibly frayed. "If you're _sure_."

She stands up, outrage giving her back the strength that fear and grief had stolen. "George, he's played me, he's _perverted_ the Sacraments, and you know as well as I do_ why_ he came to me! He's _torturing_ me just as he did Tina and Chrissie, he just doesn't have to _touch_ me to do it.

"For all I know he was out there during Tina's Mass yesterday and he'll be there for Chrissie's, probably attend both funerals, watching and laughing and _knowing_ how my having to keep quiet about him is killing me." She meets Gibbs' eyes, receiving his confirmation that the monster they are seeking would probably do exactly that.

"But he is _not_ going to win."

xxx

The plan fails.

For an hour Danielle Corsaire works with O'Mallory and Ducky, who is enhancing his Degree in Forensic Psychology, in Interrogation One. It's a place where they can work without interruption and also where they can be observed, without O'Mallory's knowledge, from the monitor room next door. Together they work out a beautifully detailed outline of the kind of personality they're looking for; narcissistic, sadistic, misogynistic, comprising an obsessive love of detail regarding Christ's suffering and crucifixion and equating it to women named in His honor and/or serving at or about His Altar, combined with a love of devious psychological torture and willingness to risk exposure to do it.

The problem is that O'Mallory is certain there is no one she knows, past or present members of the congregation of St. Mary the Virgin, who fit it. Not even Christina Dumas' virginity provides an adequate clue.

In the final fifteen minutes of the interview, NCIS Director Jenny Shepherd comes in and stands beside Gibbs near the one-way glass in the Observation room, watching the frustrating proceedings. Finally, when the others leave after the non-conclusion, Gibbs leaves his former partner to enter Interrogation One. Ducky pauses in his exit with Corsaire only long enough to give a shake of his head. Then the woman steps toward the Observation Room.

x

Gibbs sits down across the table from O'Mallory, fixing her with a quiet, sustained stare. "You're holding out on us," he tells her.

She shakes her head sadly. She knows now that she was being watched. How else could he come in and, without preamble, make such a declaration? "No, I'm not. I tell you there is no one who fits that description."

"And would you like me to tell you what I think? I think that at some time, maybe during one of those two 'confessions', maybe between, maybe in the past hour, you realized who's killing your congregation and because of your rules you won't tell us."

She shakes her head. "That's not true. I want to help."

"Oh, I believe you want to help. The problem is that you're _not_ helping. You know who did it, or you have information that can tell us who did it. But because of two thousand year old rules you won't tell us."

"Believe me, Agent Gibbs, I would if I could."

"That's the problem. And that's why he's getting away with it, because you believe you can't. But there must be _something_ you can tell us that will stop him from killing again. And he will kill again. Those who 'get away with it' never stop themselves. He must _be _stopped."

"I _want_ to stop him!" she declares in mounting passion, the unremitting pressure of the past days without sleep tearing her restraint. "If I _had_ an answer, I would tell you no matter what the consequences."

"You'd risk Excommunication?" He doesn't believe her.

"To stop this from happening again, I would. I'd face a Tribunal, but it's not up to me. I don't _have_ an answer. I wish I did." She can't hold back her frustration any longer. "He's torturing _me_ in his way just as he did Tina and Chrissie, he just doesn't have to touch me!"

"Yes, Christina and Christine. How many more are there?"

"I'm sorry?" He'd derailed her.

Gibbs grows annoyed. He can see the exhaustion in her eyes, he has no time for it. Further, exhausted subjects say more than fresh ones. "You've got over nine hundred in your parish. How many more 'Christines' are there?"

"Two," she answers, shaken. "That is, two I know personally, and others I don't. Maybe half a dozen ... I don't remember. So many members don't come often."

"They have to be protected."

"I know."

x

Gibbs is silent for a long moment, lets her think on this. Nothing he's tried so far has worked. He decides it is time to start bearing down and hang the consequences. "We've been withholding details of these crimes."

"Oh, what a surprise," she says flatly, brushing back a lock of her flame red hair behind her right ear. She had expected nothing less.

He stands up, steps around the table to the monitor behind her, compelling her to turn. He pushes a small camera memory card into the slot at the bottom.

"Come over here." When she complies, he picks up a remote, activates the screen. Siobhan gasps, horrified.

Chrissie Night hangs nude, bloody and beaten, nailed to the cross propped against the gate of the Recruiting Station. Her body is covered in bloody stripes from the scourge that gouged her flesh. The night shot is stark in the powerful flash.

A push of the button and the image jumps closer, detailing the damage to her body in merciless clarity. He presses the button again and again, pictures from several angles give a slideshow of torture. The image then focuses upon her breasts. "He likes to bite," Gibbs says, indicating her ravaged flesh, "but not only _breasts_."

The image changes and Siobhan is presented with a new horror. She gasps, takes a step back. "This is what he left of Christina Dumas _when he tore her crotch apart with his teeth_; while she was still alive and screaming!" He pushes the button again, bearing down on her. "And this is _Night_!"

Siobhan backs away, crosses herself.

The image changes to a close up of Dumas' upper body. "He _ate _her breasts so hard, over and over, that he _crushed_ several of the milk glands." He changes the image again to a horrendous close-up. "Night's left nipple was almost bitten off! She was alive while he did these things while he _raped_ her!"

"_Stop_ it!" Siobhan gasps, backing away, unable to endure any more. Never in her life has she seen such horrors. She gets around the table, backs into the far corner. "You _Bastard_ – stop it!"

"_This_ –" the image changes again to Night's deep wound, the red flesh standing sharp in horrible detail, "is from a replica of a Roman spear, eight inches long by four wide. _T__hese_," another horrible change, "are the crown marks carved into Nights head," another change, "and Dumas as you saw her on Ducky's slab!"

"Please Stop!" she implores, pressed into the corner, unable to escape.

"You _know_ who's doing this! And this - and _this_ - and THIS!"

"Stop it!" she cries. "_Please Stop It_!"

"_He_ won't stop!" Gibbs sets the screen to continue rapidly changing images and advances on her. He pins her into the corner by his closeness but stands so she can see the images past his shoulder. She tries not to look, but guilt and misery force her to see as Gibbs' words pound into her.

"He'll get _more_ violent as he goes to _more_ women, one after the other - women you _know_, _raping_ and _biting_ and _tearing_ and _torturing_ until he nails them to _crosses _and leaves their naked, broken bodies on _your doorstep_!" He's only inches from her, his voice battering her. "_And you know who it is_!"

"I don't _know_! I _SWEAR_!" she shouts, clenching her eyes shut, unable to endure the horror any longer. She'd come to help and he's _ambushed _her!

"_You_ are letting him get away with this! The _next_ woman who dies screaming will be because of _you_!"

"_Please_! I _can't_!" she cries in searing torment, unable to shut him out behind clenched eyes. "I _C__AN__'__T_!"

He pounds the wall, scares her into looking at him, forces her to see the damning images flashing on the screen beyond him. "_NAME_!" he thunders.

"_I Don't Have A Name_!" she screams in anguish.

The door beside them flies open. "Agent Gibbs!"

x

Director Jenny Shepherd stands in the doorway, livid, the Profiler just visible at the frame. There's no sound save for Siobhan's fragmented gasping. "Agent Corsaire, please escort Reverend O'Mallory to my office." She says nothing more until the trembling woman is escorted out and the door is closed.

"Jethro."

He turns toward the flashing screen, kills it with the remote. "I almost had her, Jenny."

"No you didn't." He turns back at her definite tone. "And I will not have you badgering a victim. Suspects, yes: do anything to them that you have to _within the law_ - but I will not have you do that to a victim."

"She's our only lead. She _must_ know something."

"Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. The point is that she can't tell you."

"She will."

"She won't."

x

Jenny forces her anger down, not an easy thing but Gibbs has to know what he's dealing with. "I got a call this morning from her Bishop's office. They regret what's happening, but if she _knowingly_ gives up anything said in the Confessional, she'll be penalized for it." She steps up to him, the better to drive her words into him.

"That 'Tribunal' she mentioned is the _last_ thing she'll want to pin her hopes on. Do you know the word 'defrocked'?"

"I've a pretty good idea," he admits. It's the removal of her standing as a Priest, the 'canceling' of her Ordination, the permanent _banning_ from performing the Sacraments or any other duty as a Priest.

"And it's worse than being defrocked. Knowing what's at stake, not caught off-guard and unknowingly letting something slip, if she betrays this law she'll be ex-communicated."

Worse indeed, a double blow. Beyond being stripped of her life as a priest, for the rest of her life she'll be forbidden to receive or participate in the Sacraments or in any aspect of her religion. Worse than an outcast, worse than being a pariah, she'll become a non-entity in her own religion.

x

"Find your information, but do it without her. That's an order." She turns, walks to the door, puts her hand on the knob.

"I won't follow it."

She lets go, turns around, incredulous. "What did you say?"

"I have two dead women and now I'm handed the chance - the very good chance - of two more, probably more; in _addition_ to his playing this sick game with her. I'll use _every_ resource I have to prevent any more deaths. And if you want my badge," he reaches into his pocket, pulls out the black case, "come and get it."

Though he holds it out to her, she makes no move to cross the small room. The silence between them is deafening.

"How did we come to this, Jethro?" she finally asks.

"It's a hell of a world, where only the good guys follow the rules."

"Because only the good guys make the rules," she says. "Do what you can - but don't jeopardize h–"

"What did you say?" he demands sharply. There's a strange expression on his face.

"I said 'do what you ca–'."

"No, before that."

"'Only the good guys make the rules'." She watches as something goes through his mind, something that gradually clears his eyes. Without warning, he crosses the room and grasps her by her shoulders. "Jenny, you're a _genius_." He's past her and through the door, leaving her alone in the silent room.

"Glad to help," she says into the solitude.

xx

"Ducky, we're going about this all wrong," Gibbs announces as he strides through the still-opening doors to Autopsy, finding Mallard and Palmer in intense conversation at Ducky's desk. He'd seen, and ignored, the flashing red Biohazard light over the door.

"Good afternoon to you too, Jethro," the man replies, looking back to him, not even _bothering_ to reprimand him for the intrusion into their private conversation. "And what, pray tell, are we doing wrong?"

"We're reacting, not acting. I need your encyclopedia."

"Ah, they're in my office, on the shelves to the right of my desk."

"Not that set; the one between your ears."

xxx

Twenty minutes later he strides through the outer sliding glass doors to the Forensics Lab, finding it quite empty. Abby's radio is on, but not deafeningly loud, for which he is grateful. He lowers it further, however, and then switches it off. "Abby?"

A moment later Abby, pleased to hear Gibbs' voice if not the cavalier usurping of her radio, comes out of her office. She's not wearing her lab coat, her black and red pleated 'schoolgirl' micro-skirt sways softly and suggestively as she walks. She puts an extra swing into her hips just because it _is_ Gibbs. Her 'If I'm not_ Screaming, _you're doing it wrong!' black tee shirt is a size too small, intentionally selected to 'tease' her co-workers, none of whom would be so bold as to try to make her scream, despite the luridness of the offer.

Gibbs can quite clearly see, with the tightness of the tee shirt molded to her flesh, that she's not wearing a bra.

She stops, smiling at him and her hands move in a complicated ballet of gestures which say to him **Hi, Gibbs, I've got the samples of fingerprints from the Confessional running,** she points to the flashing images on the comparison screen, **and I'm just getting ready to run saliva samples from Night's breasts.**

**That's fine,** he replies with brief motions of his own hands.

**I'm also making good progress on that DNA trace from Night's leg. I should have enough cloned to have a matchable sample within a few hours.**

**Call me the instant you do.**

**I'm glad to see you're keeping in practice,** she tells him in utter silence.

**I always have to keep on top of you,** he signs, causing her to laugh, their only sound so far. It's unusual for him to hit _her_ with a double entendre.

His eyes flick over her suggestive outfit, too scandalous for the workplace; knowing that's exactly why she wore it. He frowns, not hiding his displeasure at her choice of work attire, particularly at one - no, make that two - details.

She catches his gaze on her ample chest and glances down, noticing the not-at-all-tiny bumps of her nipples pushing her shirt enticingly. **Your _fault_,** she signs emphatically, **for being such a sexy silver fox.** She gives him a lecherous grin.

Switching back to voice, she adds an extra measure of teasing offer to her tone. "So, what can I do with you?"

"Take off your clothes."


	14. Goodbye Chris

Chapter Fourteen  
Goodbye Chris

Abby gapes at him, unable to believe what he's just said.

'Take off your clothes,' he'd ordered.

Yes, he actually did say it. She hadn't imagined it.

All the lascivious joking she's ever done with him had been safe because she knew he'd never take her up on any of it. Or rather, she'd _thought _he wouldn't.

But stunning as this is, she's annoyed with herself for being apprehensive. This is _Gibbs. _She trusts him like a father. Remembering all the times she'd come on to him lately, she supposes she 'has this coming'. She reaches down, tugs the black tee shirt free from her miniskirt and starts to lift it.

"Stop." She has the shirt raised half way up. Her arms are trapped, her midriff bare. Another inch and he'll see the bottoms of her breasts. "Why are you taking your clothes off?"

'Is it time for the Mad Hatter's tea party?' she wonders. "Because you told me to."

"You always do everything I tell you to do?"

She shrugs very carefully, still holding her shirt up, a bare fraction from exposing her charms. "Yes," she admits, not certain if she's sorry for it.

"You trust me?"

"Yes, I trust you."

"Why?"

"…well, Gibbs, you're _Gibbs_."

"Why?" he presses.

She considers carefully, wondering where he is going with this strange line but no longer uncomfortable. "Well, I _have_ been teasing you all summer, and I can see where you'd want to see me naked - I look _great_ naked! - and you _did_ walk in on me and see me 90 percent naked and about to get it on with McGee – and I don't _know_ why you want to see me naked," she admits, running down. "But if that's what you really _want_–"

"Suppose Jimmy Palmer were to come in and tell you to take your clothes off."

"_I'd slap him into next week_!" she declares, letting go of the material which snaps back to her body, leaving her midriff bare but double covering her breasts. She knows from her early morning conversation that Michelle Lee would do far more. She's discretely kept the woman's secret about the fingerprints on the cloth from the others; but with Gibbs there was no point, he'd known already.

"Why?"

x

Dawn is coming. "Because he has no right to tell me to do _anything_, whereas you do, and I'll even obey the outrageous because I trust you."

"Right. Trust." He had been 'testing' the nature and degree of trust – not a true test because he knows Abby would follow his direction – but her trust is such that she didn't even protest or resist the outrageous order.

"Neither of those girls made any complaint, even to their friends, of someone harassing them before he made his move, yet all the evidence suggests that whoever did this is intimately familiar with them from within the Church. He knows the routine. An outsider would look suspicious being constantly there to see when O'Mallory is scheduled to serve in the Confessional. Whoever did this, they both probably trusted him.

"That bar that was holding the door closed...?" He leaves the question hanging.

"Forty two point eight six inches," she declares, tugging her shirt down to its wonted position, "_precisely_ long enough to fit into the decorative molding of the door and reach to the top of the bronze dedication plaque for that pew. It could be placed into position without O'Mallory hearing any scratching on the door because it was a perfect fit. It didn't even leave a scrape or mark until she started throwing her weight against the door."

"I got a call a few minutes ago from DiNozzo," he tells her. "He and McGee are at Night's apartment. No sign of forced entry, but there was a struggle in the kitchen. There are groceries on the table, the bags overturned, frozen food defrosted but no sign anyone broke in and was waiting for her."

"Because he came in _with_ her."

"If so, we assume she trusted him. The same with Dumas' apartment. No sign of break-in, but your tests showed there was nothing unusual on her body other than those cement traces. If she were grabbed someplace else, there might have been scrapes, defensive wounds."

"Neither girl had defensive wounds," Abby reminds him. "You think they knew and trusted their attacker?"

"I do."

x

"Not Father Donaldson!" she exclaims, appalled. She hasn't met the man, but this thought, even with her experience with Chaplain Evans and his underground stash of 'perfect wives' nearly three years ago, is still beyond her endurance.

"No. Aside from the fact that O'Mallory and Velez alibi him - and also witnesses say he wasn't in the Church the first time the perp 'confessed' - she's known him for too long. Neither voice, even if _both _were disguised, could be his."

"Oh. That's good." She's relieved. There are some things in her universe that should not be tampered with.

"No, it's someone else who frequents, or works for, that Church; someone who can come and go without being noticed and can take precise measurements without arousing suspicion."

"But someone whose voice Mother O'Mallory won't recognize?" It doesn't add up, at least not to her. But she has to admit that Gibbs' math is something quite different from what she learned in College.

"Looks that way. DiNozzo and McGee are getting fingerprints and other samples from Night's apartment; David's doing the same at Dumas'. Let me know as soon as you get the samples and a match."

"Will do. But now let me tell you something about those spikes."

"What have you got?"

x

"I've got two seven inch iron spikes, hand-made in good _old fashioned_ Roman style," she tells him with great relish, her earlier anxiety long ago evaporated now that she can get back on her favorite subject - forensics. Her stomach and back are getting cold in the A/C, but she leaves the shirt doubled over her breasts. The outrageous declaration on it isn't as fun as it used to be. "These things were cast in the same hand carved mold from _exactly _the same mixture of metals, in the exact proportions, that the old Romans used 2,000 years ago. You're looking for a history buff whose a certified _whacko_!"

"Well done. Anything else?"

"I've eliminated your suspect. Turns out Jordan had a bridge put in a couple of years ago to replace three teeth lost in an auto accident. No match to the impressions on either woman's breasts. I'm afraid your prime suspect isn't so prime."

Gibbs isn't put out; he has more leads. "Anything else?"

"Come on, Gibbs, I've barely had time for breakfast!"

"Solve this in an hour, I'll cook you a banquet."

"You're on!" Leaning in close, he kisses her cheek and then starts out of the Lab. "Oh, Gibbs?"

He looks back. "Yes?"

"While we're on the subject of food, next time you make me strip, could you wait until after dinner?"

"Sure," she starts to turn, "how about after the banquet?" She turns back, startled, but sees the smile on his face. She raises her finger to him, firing it like a gun, which only makes him smile more as he turns to leave.

As soon as he's on the elevator, he pulls out his cell phone, punches a speed dial combination. "Ducky, break out your dental paste, we're heading to the Church." He closes the phone, realizing he's just given an order that, had he given it two days ago, Chrissie Night might still be alive.

xxx

Siobhan O'Mallory leaves the Director's office, having listened to the woman's apologies for the way she'd been treated and having given the 'obligatory' assurances that she understood and wasn't angry, but she'd kept her glasses off, couldn't look in Shepherd's eyes as she'd said the words. Now as she descends by the elevator to Autopsy she prays for forgiveness for those lies. She's both angry and shaken and is doing her best to disguise and put away these feelings. It's horrible enough to lose two friends, but to be accused of withholding evidence–.

All right, she _is_ withholding evidence, but not willingly. She'd gladly tell everything she could if it would lead to the capture of this monster - but she honestly doesn't _know_ who it is! She's racked her brain every moment since she'd first encountered that monster through a thin screen - and despite her training which teaches her to hate the sin but love the sinner, he _is_ a monster - but the voices and manners are so different she doesn't know them.

She gets off the elevator when it arrives at the basement and is through the opening glass and steel doors of Autopsy before she stops. She stands in the open portal of the wide doors, unsure.

"You are going to want to move away from those doors," the Medical Examiner tells her as he approaches from his desk to her left, "they are sensitive to motion."

Even as he speaks, the doors start to close upon her and as she steps inside quickly they halt their approach, reopen and then a few moments later resume their closing. "What may I do for you, my dear Reverend?"

x

She looks at the shorter man, quite lost for words. He's wearing a brown tweed jacket and, incongruously, a bow tie topping off his blue shirt and she can't recall the last time she had seen someone wear a bow tie other than when in a tuxedo, but she thinks it suits him. His wise face seems to hold the vast stores of the world's wisdom while she is unsure. She'd rather give him some quip about meeting him here again, but her soul is too laden for her to dredge one up. "I've come to see Chrissie Night."

"Ah, yes, Mother." He does not glance away from her eyes; the orbs behind each of their glasses communicating and withholding much. He does not waste words on caution; he'd done that already and recognizes duty that overwhelms will. He guides her to the bank of cooling units.

He takes hold of the handle of one and she realizes it's the one next to that where Tina lies. He opens the door and pulls out the pallet.

Siobhan's breath catches in her throat and she can't force herself to breathe. Chrissie is nineteen years old and should be at the Mall this morning with her friends, laughing over some nonsense - or clothed in her blue robes for Choir on Sunday - not naked on a metal pallet with her flesh sewn from shoulders to between her breasts and then down to her groin, her body whipped and beaten and savagely torn. She should be listening to wild, ear-torturing music, not locked in the utter silence of this chamber. She should be trying on the most outrageous and obscene fashions her mother would fly into a rage over if she saw her daughter wearing them - not lying naked and ….

Before her frozen stare the pallet slides away, back into the dark and the door is closed. Siobhan sees, over the level of her vision locked upon the floor, the shoes and pants legs of the man come before her and it's only when she feels the touch of his hand upon her arm that she manages to draw a Herculean breath.

x

"I'm sorry," she gasps, looking up at the old man, but she sees in his protected eyes that there is no need of words.

"It is never easy to lose one friend, especially to violence," he says softly, commiserating. "But to lose _two _in as many days is a far worse torment."

"I'm supposed to be the one who–"

"Mother, in here there is no 'supposed'. You and I have known too many deaths in our lives, those we know and those we do not know, but we feel the pain of both."

"'When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous have a refuge'," she quotes, but it is clear to Ducky she's reminding herself rather than him. "I wish I could pray that she died without pain, without fear, but I know better," she admits, feeling, strangely enough, that she can talk to this man. But she can find no words. She's too overwhelmed by the things she wants to say.

"I keep a supply of medicinal remedies on hand for…." he does not need to finish but she shakes her head.

"I'm supposed to say there's no need, but the truth is they won't help. But thank you."

"What shall you do?"

She thinks about this. What indeed? "Go back to the office, make phone calls and preparations for _two _funerals; which takes longer than you might imagine; and then…." The words die.

"Whom will you speak to?"

She knows the question has nothing to do with phone calls, or with anyone else but herself. George Donaldson springs quickly to mind, as he always does, but he is as similarly burdened by grief. Misery shared is not misery halved when both are miserable.

She shakes her head, her voice no more than a whisper. "I don't know."

x

He's about to say something when a bagpipe rendition of 'Scotland Forever' emerges from the pocket of his jacket. "Excuse me," he apologizes, taking the call. It is brief and his eyes flicker to hers but he says nothing to her until he puts the phone back in his pocket. "I'm terribly sorry, Mother, but I must leave immediately. Mr. Palmer can assist you with your friend."

"Thank you, Doctor.

"Ducky, please."

She smiles, he suspects, perhaps the first one she has in two days. "Ducky."

He would offer her a ride home, especially as he's going there as well, but he supposes she's come via her own car and senses she has a greater need for solitude at this moment.


	15. Sacrilege

Chapter Fifteen  
Sacrilege

"Where is Mother O'Mallory?" Gibbs asks when he and Ducky sit down opposite Fr. George Donaldson's desk. It's the first time he has met here with only one of the priests. Ducky has an answer to this question, but having seen much in Reverend O'Mallory's eyes, he forbears answering it.

"She called a little while ago, I told her to take the afternoon off," Donaldson tells them. "She was devastated by everything that's happened today." It's as much as he'll say in conveying his displeasure at the tale he's heard. He channels his anger against Gibbs into a prayer that the author of this tragedy will be caught before more innocents suffer.

"I'd rather not disturb her, though she is scheduled to do Evening Prayer at 5:00, so she'll be here in about an hour." He glances at the phone, not willing to but "I can call her back sooner if it's really important."

"No, Father. Let her rest."

"How can I help?"

With the first words out of his mouth, Gibbs and Ducky were sure he's not the man they want.

"We're here to take samples," Ducky tells him, patting the large metal box upon his lap. "Whoever is doing this to your parishioners is biting them. We want to compare dental impressions with the marks upon their bodies.

"I see. Go ahead," he offers.

"Actually, that's not necessary. You see, we are looking for a man with bad teeth. The lower jaw of our subject contains misaligned teeth. I can already tell that you are not a candidate."

"Well, that's good to know. Misaligned teeth, you say. Then as soon as you get your impression you'll know?"

"Not exactly. No positive determination can be made without careful comparison. We can't accuse a potential suspect based on similar impressions. The match must be positively verified."

Donaldson thinks this over. "Unfortunately, I can think of several who might fit that description. This isn't a wealthy neighborhood, to say the least. In fact, the median income of our local parishioners is around 30 thousand. Many don't take care of themselves like they should, in several senses."

"Any of those frequent the Church, are seen around a lot, so much so that they might blend into the background?" Gibbs asks.

"We always hope for good and regular attendance, though we don't often get it."

"How about among your staff?"

x

The smile, such as it had been, disintegrates. "That's an unpleasant thought."

"So are serial torture and murder. We think that both Dumas and Night knew and trusted their attacker."

"I see." This thought is particularly disturbing, but Donaldson can't put it away. "Yes, I understand. Still, we have a small staff. The Sexton's husband is in and out all the time. We've a Gardener - your Agent has already spoken to Charlie. We've a Choir Director and there are nine men in the choir along with eleven women, not counting Chrissie. We've a Eucharistic Minister, Bob Hastings, you've seen his picture over there with Tina and Melanie, and there are four male Acolytes. Mark Jordan is our Organist; your Agent McGee has spoken to him already too."

'And Abby ruled him out,' Gibbs reflects. "Are there any that ladies would trust enough to invite to their apartments?"

"I'd vouch for the character of each and every one of them," Donaldson says sharply.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," Gibbs concludes.

"Yes." He doesn't like the idea that one of the men he had mentioned, and many he had not because they are not on the staff, could be capable of these atrocities.

"Anyone you can think of whose a little 'strange'?"

"Not in the way we're talking about, no."

"Well, of those you mentioned, who is here today?"

"Charlie's out in the garden and Ed Fisher is cleaning up in the basement. I expect his son Harry will be with him, possibly some others, I can check. Mark is due very soon to rehearse the music we'll be using for Tina and Chrissie's funerals. But I can't believe that people like this…. Mark's been our Organist for six years, Chrissie rehearsed with him every Saturday and sang on Sundays. Charlie heads up the St. Fiacre Society and he and Tina worked together in the garden–"

"Yes, well, we will be discreet," Ducky assures him.

x

It's not easy to be discreet when calling someone into the Rector's office to have Federal Agents take dental impressions, but they do try. Neither the gardener, the handyman nor any of the other member of the staff present this late afternoon raises any objections to the samples being collected, but Donaldson had been right, there are many who would benefit from long overdue visits to dentists.

The story of what had happened to Christina Dumas has been on all the news stations and word about Christine Night had circulated quickly in the past hours since the cataclysmic events of the 10:00 a.m. 'confession'.

By four-thirty all the samples that can be taken have been and Ducky closes up his box.

"It'll soon be time for Evening Prayer," Donaldson informs them. "You're invited to stay."

"Mother O'Mallory will be officiating?" Ducky asks.

"I expected her already." She's not strictly _late_, but if she doesn't appear in the next ten minutes he'll have to prepare to take her place.

Gibbs considers. "I don't think she'll be too happy to see me."

"I dare say; if the story I heard is any indication. But we men and women of the Cloth are a forgiving breed."

xx

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory pushes open the huge door of St. Mary's, allows it to close quietly behind her as she starts up the center aisle of the Church, remonstrating herself once again for being late. It may be only 4:35, but she always likes to be here by 4:00 when she's scheduled for a Service, so she doesn't have to rush through her prayers and preparations.

She hasn't gotten any rest, leaving the Navy Yard immediately after Dr. Mallard had, returning home but being unable to 'turn off'. She'd lain down on her bed, unable to close her eyes and suddenly she realized there was no time to rest. She was already late.

The church is brightly lit through the huge stained glass windows on either side and there are eighteen widely scattered people in the pews. She greets each with a nod and a smile as she traverses the 200 feet, steps into the Sanctuary and genuflects in respect to the sanctified Eucharist set within the covered tabernacle beyond the green frontal draped Altar.

"Moth'r O'Mallory?"

x

She's mildly surprised to be called, turns toward the voice of the man behind her. Charlie Morley stands up within the front pew on her left. "I … hered what happen' ta Chrissie." He comes out, steps closer. She's inches above him on the edge of the elevated Sanctuary. "There'r Fed'ral Agents in the office, checkin' ever'one's teeth."

"Really." She tries to keep her tone non-committal, it doesn't come out questioning. Lately the thought of these Federal Agents - actually one in particular - is not pleasant at all.

The man nods, rubbing his hands on his coveralls. "Yeah. They's lookin' for whoev'r bit them gels."

"I'm sure they're pursuing a very thorough investigation," she grants. She's not happy with the way that investigation has gone today, but doesn't want to burden the man with her reservations - or her resentments.

"Looks lak it." He hesitates, looking up at her as she stands on the elevated platform within the Sanctuary. "I'd jus' like to says … well … I'd jus' like to says …"

She waits patiently, but he seems quite at a loss for words. She's not surprised; she rarely knows what to say anymore about this madness and he's not the most loquacious man she knows. She's barely known him to utter two sentences together. But she has to keep track of the time, doesn't want to appear rude but doesn't want to rush through her Vesting prayers either.

"Yes?" she urges.

"I jus' wantend to say you should'a kept yer vows." His fist flashes up, cracks against her jaw.

x

Siobhan flies backward from the unexpected punch, collides with the stone Altar, bent back over it and he's upon her. He turns her, forces her to bend forward over the Altar and wrenches her left arm up behind her back and almost out of her socket. She shrieks, the sound echoes throughout the cavernous Church, startles the praying men and women who look up in disbelief at the struggling pair.

Morley twists his fingers in her red hair, yanks her head upward as she screams again. His hand is tight about her wrist, wrenches her arm painfully up behind her, his body pins hers bent over the Altar.

"Should'a kept yer _mouth_ shut!" he grates, pulls her arm up even higher. Her shriek fills and reverberates through the Church.

"_Federal Agents - __L__et __H__er __G__o_!" A shout from their right fills the building as Gibbs appears at the Sacristy door. His gun is held in a two handed grip aimed at Morley. Donaldson is a step behind Gibbs, still in the small room, another man barely visible behind him.

x

Morley turns, yanks Siobhan across the Altar and up between them. Her body blocks Gibbs' shot as the green frontal and fair linen slide off the jade Altar to land bunched at their feet. She tries to break away, but his grips in her hair and her arm pin her in place between Morley and the gun. She struggles, tries to get out of the line and give Gibbs a target. Morley pulls her arm up with vicious force, rips another scream from her. His mad strength almost pulls her arm out from her shoulder.

"Git back!" Morley demands. Standing beside the Altar there's no cover and amazed, outraged parishioners block the center aisle. "Everyone back or I'll kill 'er!" He releases her hair, snakes his arm about her throat and reaches all the way around to grasp her red hair. "I cin break 'er neck before ya can pull tha' trigger."

"And I'll blow you to hell," Gibbs promises.

"One less _bitch_ pervertin' God's Altar - I'll take m' chances."

'Why is it always the religious nuts?' Gibbs thinks, remembering George Simmons / Greg Martin. He pulls back the hammer on his gun, unnecessary but always effective.

"Let her go and no one has to get hurt."

"No, Agent Gibbs," Siobhan forces her words through gritted teeth. Morley wrenches her arm up again behind her but she doesn't cry out, fights the agony, moves her body forward to get some space between them. "_Someone_ has to get hurt!"

She brings her right heel back up as hard as she can, it hits something and she's rewarded with a guttural cry and immediate release from her pain. She turns, finds Morley bent forward but still on his feet, clutching his crotch. She takes two steps back and tugs her skirt out of her way, aims carefully.

"_That _was for Chrissie Night;" she tells him with great satisfaction, her anger high, "and _this_ -" she steps forward quickly, "- is for _Tina_ _**Dumas**_!"

Her foot crashes into her target so hard that Gibbs, Donaldson and Mallard all wince in sympathetic pain. The piercing shriek reverberates through the Church. Siobhan grasps Morley's coveralls as he starts to collapse, wrenches him up until their faces are inches apart. "'_Get thee behind me, Satan'_!" she demands furiously, turns and hurtles him off the Sanctuary. He rolls to a ragged heap between the forward pews as parishioners hastily back out of the way.

x

There's profound silence as Rev. Siobhan O'Mallory stands alone at the Altar, then the first of the applause starts from the far end of the Church, more being added to by the moment from the widely scattered congregation. Even Donaldson and Mallard joining in while Gibbs, not applauding but giving her the same regard, puts away his gun and walks to Morley. Unmoved by his pain, he grabs him by the overalls and hauls him to his feet.


	16. Epilogue

Chapter Sixteen  
Epilogue One

Leroy Jethro Gibbs sits in the office of his former partner, now his Director, boxes and plates of Chinese food between them. The sun has set long ago and the red haired woman has reduced the room lights to just the one on her desk across the room, creating a relaxing atmosphere. There have been too few relaxing moments lately.

"So, she's going to be okay?" she asks.

"Ducky says it's just a sprain, a few days with liniment and she'll be fine. She's got a bruise on her chin, but you can hardly see it."

Jenny reflects that she's talking to a man who would describe anything short of a fatal injury as a flesh wound, but this is a civilian they're talking about. "I dare say from your story that she'll be regarded as something of a hero."

"It was, as Ducky said, 'suitably dramatic'," he allows. "And we both know the story will ripen as it spreads."

"_Good_," she says, satisfied.

x

"What really bothers me," Jenny confesses after they have eaten for a few minutes in silence, "is how he managed to worm his way into the trust of so many people."

"'A wolf in the fold'," Gibbs quotes, taking a drink from his bottle of beer, "or in his case a jackal. No record at all, not even a parking ticket, then suddenly *." he snaps his fingers illustratively. "He didn't have to 'worm his way' into anything. He was there for years, an old trusted worker and friend."

"I'm surprised Reverend O'Mallory didn't recognize him. She's an intelligent woman."

"It was all an act - from day one. He didn't talk, some said he could go for days without a word."

"I know someone like that."

He ignores the dig. That he'd have anything in common with that misogynistic psycho... "But when he got into that Confessional he was a changed man. E din tak so gud, bu – with enough practice he could imitate cultured speech as well as we could do the reverse."

"So he's been planning this for – how long?" She doesn't want to imagine the kind of mind that could lay such groundwork.

"I don't know yet, but my gut tells me it's a long time. O'Mallory figured out the rest of it - the 'confessions' were a sham. He was never sorry - he just told her enough to make her believe he was. Then, once she gave absolution, she couldn't take it back, nor could she talk." He sets down the bottle. There's not enough beer in the building for this next point.

"_She _was his ultimate target. What he had planned for her you don't want to hear, but first he was 'warming her up'. He enjoyed torturing her as much as those other women - he just didn't have to touch her to make her hurt. He told me he wanted her broken _before_ he took her."

"Will we ever know what happened that set him off?"

"DiNozzo and David found plenty of stuff in his home, 'right wing' garbage from a small but extreme separatist group that broke from the national church. No women taking the Orders, no women on the Altar or taking a prominent role... Women, if they want to serve, should be nuns, otherwise content to be barefoot and pregnant. But even that group only advocates firing the women and getting things back to normal.

"Apparently he and a good many others are frustrated by the fact that that religion is moving so far away from the 'right' way of doing things. Greg Martin had similar interpretations of the Bible, but against witches. But he took things too far even for them."

"'Ya think'?"

He salutes her with his bottle. "He stewed for years, couldn't do anything about women being Ordained, nor made Bishops, but when their National body elected a woman President–."

"Primate," she corrects him. "Katherine Jefferts-Schori." At his look, she gives him a satisfied smile, reaches for her own beer. "The first woman in charge of a major religion in this country, you'd better believe I'd take note."

x

"Well, he took more than note; he snapped. They found a chamber of horrors in his basement" he says, disgusted with what they did find, "with enough 'supplies' ready to take out at least seven more people right now. He seems to have first fixated upon women named 'Christine' or some variation. McGee found that one of the others on the Church rolls is missing, and Abby found blood from an earlier victim in Dumas' wounds. The skin samples from that scourge match it."

Jenny can't repress a shudder. "You'll find her," she says confidently. Privately she's more hopeful than confident. Bodies disappear, sometimes for years, sometimes forever.

"Oh, we will. Right now he's in lockup, but I'll get the story out of him." Gibbs takes a few more bites of food. "Then he'll stand trial and never have to look at another woman again so long as he lives."

"Hardly seems fair. He's getting off far too easy."

"Don't I know it? I wish he'd had a gun."

"Jethro," she says reprovingly.

"Third party defense."

"As your Director, I shouldn't be hearing this."

"And as my partner?"

She smiles, "I hear from Ducky, when he performed First Aid on Morley, that Reverend O'Mallory has pretty good aim."

"That she does," he assures her, passing another helping of fried rice.

Epilogue Two

The stone fountain bubbles softly behind them as Tim McGee and Siobhan O'Mallory sit down in the garden surrounded by the Church before them and adjoining hall behind. They sit quietly for a time, just enjoying the quiet and the warmth of the August Friday late afternoon. He puts a brown paper bag onto the grass beside the bench.

It's almost a full day since the climactic events within the Sanctuary and the news reports last night and today haven't been stingy with the lurid details of the monster nor with their praise of the 'Battling Woman Priest'.

Apparently the parishioners who had witnessed the capture had been very impressed by their Clergywoman, freely relating that regard to the media. Tim had seen two interviews with Siobhan before retiring, but he's already heard a version this early morning on a 'news commentary' that would have astonished anyone present during the actual event.

He'd read her reluctance in her eyes as she'd appeared on his plasma screen and wondered which she'd considered to be worse, a madman's torment or the reporters and cameras.

x

Siobhan, as usual for her in the warm afternoon, wears her 'uniform' of black skirt, light blue back-button blouse and encircling white collar. He's opted for more casual black pants and white short sleeved shirt. He can see where makeup obscures the mark on the left side of her chin when a careless rub had uncovered a trace.

He no more tells her of this than he does his wish to have been present yesterday. He truly can't decide which would have taken the greater precedence; his saving her from the assault or being present to witness her 'solution' first hand, instead of getting the impressive tale from Ducky.

"Well, at least it's over," he tells her. Actually it won't be over until they or Metro PD find Christa Alvarez, but he doesn't want to burden her with this now.

"Is it, Timmy?" she asks sadly, turning to him, the pain barely hidden behind her gold framed glasses tearing at his heart. "Maybe it is for you, but Dr. Mallard released Tina & Chrissie's bodies this afternoon; their wakes are combined in the same Home. Tina's funeral is this Wednesday morning, Chrissie's is in the afternoon, five more days of…. Their families are coming in, or are already in," she sighs sadly, her shoulders slumping as she leans back on her hands on the stone bench, "and that Sanctuary and Choir loft are going to be pretty empty places for a long time to come."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know." She tries to smile at him, but it's a weak one.

x

"What about you?"

She looks at him curiously, sitting forward. "What about me? I try to bring the Word and Love of God to my people, try to make them see His Love and Will in everything that happened. I carry on. I have my duties, my commitments and people I love. I'll be fine. Just … a little lonely."

"And what about–?" he waves his hand toward the Church before them.

She understands he means everyone else. "We carry on. We don't forget. We forgive - or try to - but we don't forget; at least not the good things. The rest is for prayer." She tries to smile, it's a sad one. "And on that note, tell Agent Gibbs for me that I forgive him too." She recalls calling him a 'bastard', her personally worst curse. "He'll know why."

"Okay." he doesn't know and doubts he ever will. "So you'll be all right?" He needs to be sure.

"I'll be fine," she 'promises', praying it will be so.

x

They're quiet for a long time, just listening to the bubbling fountain behind them and the bird in the tree above. "I could … I could come down occasionally," he offers, feeling it a rather lame one.

"You're always welcome." But then she reconsiders. "Just don't make too much of a habit of it. Your friend Agent DiNozzo seems taken by the idea that you're 'dating' a Priest." She manages to grin, happy that for a brief moment it's real humor, real pleasure.

Tim shakes his head, trying not to consider it. "I can't take on any more. I already have two women fighting over me,"

"_Really_?" She's impressed. "You've come a long way from the 'Bookworm'."

"I _work_ with both of them." His words are carried on such a tone of doom it makes her grin despite her desire to appear sympathetic.

"Sounds like I should pencil you in for some Consultation," her grin widens. "Or maybe I should talk to _them_. I've plenty of ammunition I could give them."

"Please - _don't_ give them any more ammunition."

"Are they armed?"

"One is, though she doesn't need it. The other once assured me she's the only person in the world that could kill me and leave no forensic evidence. I believe her."

"Poor boy;" she says with faux sympathy, patting his arm. "'But don't forget folks,'" she sings softly, "'that's what you get folks, for making whoopie'."

"I don't!" He reconsiders. "Exactly."

"I sense a story coming on."

"Maybe I'll stop by and tell you some day."

"Count on it."

x

"And perhaps some time, we can go out for dinner or something."

Her eyes widen. "Timmy McGee, are you asking me out on a date?"

"No!" But then realizes he has been had - again. "Well, maybe not a _date_, but dinner. You do still like to eat dinner, I presume."

"Of course," she smiles, the prospect of real pleasure helping to wash away the gloom. "I'd love to go out to dinner with you sometime - provided you make me one promise."

"What's that?"

"Don't call me 'Reverend' - or 'Mother'," she shudders, "or 'Reverend Mother'." She shudders more.

"Deal."

"You can be my Secular lifeline," she reminds him of their previous conversation on this bench.

"You mean we'll be going steady under cover?" he asks with an anticipatory grin.

She considers carefully, not wanting the matter to get out of hand, but then she notices his teasing look and realizes she's been equally had. "Sure."

"And I know just how you won't be recognized." He picks up the paper bag from the grass beside him and hands it to her. She opens it and pulls out a black baseball cap with four white letters embroidered upon it. "I kind of have a hard time getting used to seeing you without a cap on."

x

She puts on the cap, looking at her reflection barely discernable in the stained glass window before them. "I'll never take it off."

"It'll look great at the Altar."

She giggles, "'Enkiss' Chaplain?"

"I could talk to Director Shepherd."

She pats his arm. "Sure, you do that. And when she laughs you out of her office, you come to see me."

"Past tense," he corrects her.

She stops, confused. "You came to see me when she laughed you out of her office?"

"No, I mean I came to see you when she _didn't_ laugh me out of her office."

x

Looking into his eyes, O'Mallory feels her face slowly fall in wonder. She's stricken speechless when she understands what he's saying. He isn't joking - she knows him far too well to be this thoroughly fooled.

He's serious.

"What are you -? Timmy, are you telling me –?" As she comes to understand _what _he's telling her, she's stunned. It's unbelievable. In a second a thousand concerns flash through her mind and she can't process any of them. "I - Timmy, I - I don't know what to say."

"'Yes'," he suggests.

"I -." She shakes her head. He really means it. He's actually _serious_. "I - you're - you're serious?" She has to hear it; she can't believe it.

"I'm serious. Chaplain for the Headquarters Division of NCIS. The job's yours if you want it."

x

This is too much, too sudden - _way_ too much!

"Can I - can I think about it?" She's unable to think about _anything_. _What_ is she getting into? What is _he_ getting her into?

"Of course," he assures her. "You'll be based here; this'll just be an additional assignment."

'An additional assignment,' she thinks, 'like I _need_ another.' She stares at him, deeply shaken. "I–. But..." She has to stop, to consider, to organize her thoughts. They won't organize. He'd paved the way _before_ making this offer? "You did all this without _asking_ me?" He nods, not drawing back. "_Why_?"

He takes her hand and there's no humor in his eyes. He can't deny a measure of selfish interest in his inspired plan, in that he'll see her far more often if she says 'yes', but that's secondary to the true reason. "Because I know you, because I believe in you and know this would be good for you - and us," he tells her and she recognizes he means NCIS in general, not just them in particular. "And because Christina Dumas is your friend and she applied to become a Chaplain in the Marines and didn't live to see it. I just thought …." He leaves it hanging, seeing the stricken look lingering in her eyes. "I'm sorry. Maybe I didn't think it through properly. I _should _have asked you first."

x

O'Mallory stands up, steps away from him, toward the Church. She has to put some distance between them. She's shaking - it's happening too fast, it's hard to think, to take this all in - too hard.

For many long moments she stands looking through, or into, the stained glass. In her reflection the reversed letters embroidered upon the hat come back to her in frightening prediction of something she'd never expected, never imagined and which she is certainly not ready for.

This is too much to take in; there's so much about that group and the life Timmy and the others lead that she doesn't comprehend. And her two visits to their headquarters have _not _been pleasant experiences.

But she thinks of the people she met and even more of those she has not, but had heard of from him over the past year…

She thinks of her life at St. Mary's. She's comfortable here. But George Donaldson had once counseled her on the mistake of growing too comfortable anywhere. But this life wouldn't change appreciably, at least not more than she could take, because Timmy has told her it would not and she trusts him. Most especially, God never gives anyone challenges that they can't meet and overcome with His help.

x

She'll be 'based' here - how odd a concept - but this will be another job and her new 'flock' would probably be coming to her as often as she went to them - perhaps more so.

And an additional job means an added salary and the Choir loft needs repair, more so than the budget allows. And then there's work on the basement, and the Rectory and the– There's always work on structures like these and if she can help, then she owes it to St. Mary's.

But then she thinks of Tina, of her dreams and ambitions they'd discussed so many times, the application Timmy had mentioned being no surprise to her. She feels she can almost 'see' in her reflection - not with her human eyes but with the eyes of her soul - that Tina is standing beside her. In her imagination her friend is wearing her familiar black formal uniform, but instead of paired Lieutenant's bars, the emblem on her left side is a Cross.

Looking into that invisible reflection, Siobhan knows it's real in a way she can never convey to Tim. She can't see, but she can _feel_ the presence of her friend, even as she could in life and knows it to be so.

After very a long time, though to her certainly not long enough: "Timmy?"

"Yes?"

x

She turns to him and he's stricken by the image she presents; white encircling collar and pale blue shirt, black knee-length skirt and black NCIS hat confining her red hair, all before the stained glass of her Church. "You may tell your Director - yes."

He stands up, takes a small black leather folder out of his pocket and steps to her. "Then please allow me the honor," he hands the slim case to her, "of making it Official."

x

She opens it with a sense of deep wonder. Gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight is a gold shield surmounted by an eagle with outstretched wings. Within the circular emblem near the bottom is the Seal of the Navy: a three-masted ship over another eagle, this one with wings extended in flight, embossed about with 'Department of the Navy, United States of America'. Along the curved banner at the base is inscribed 'Naval Criminal Investigative Service'.

Near the top, just under the large US, where the designation 'Special Agent' would be, golden letters shine boldly: 'CHAPLAIN'.

"Welcome aboard."

She looks up at him, her eyes shining with inexpressible emotion. She doesn't even try to speak as they put their arms around each other in a close hug and she kisses his cheek.

_Fin_.

…

Next Episode: 'Fantasy Affair'

'Dragonclaw' and 'Dragonfire' are two mysteries that try the NCIS. Secrets are revealed, loyalties tested and death haunts the Agents as one of them faces the ultimate sacrifice.


End file.
